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LOFDON;— PARTRIDGE AND OAKEY, 



LIFE AND WRITINGS 



OF 



ANDREW MA BY ELL. 



ANDREW MARVELL : 



THE WIT, STATESMAN, AND POET 



HIS 



LIFE AND WRITINGS. 



EDITED BT 

EDWIN PAXTON HOOD, 

s 
AUfHOR Off "TEE AGE AND ITS ARCHITECTS," "OLD 
ENGLAND," " COMMON SENSE," &C. 



LONDON: 
PUBLISHED BY PARTRIDGE & OAKEY. 

MDCCCLIIX. 



' > 



yO 



PREFACE. 



The Reader will have to thank the Editor of 
Ihe following pages for little more than the 
string which holds the various paragraph* 
together. 

It is nearly one hundred years since the last 
edition of the works of Marvell was pub- 
lished, in Three Volumes, for Three Guineas. 
The major part of our Author's Writings, 
inserted in this Volume, are extracted from 
those which have been very carefully collated 
and looked at by the lamps of contemporaneous 
history. 

Two small Lives of Marvel have been pub- 
lished ; the one by Hartley Coleridge, the 
other by Mr. Dove ; but thes8 two book« are 



PREFACE. 

so precisely alike, and appeared so simulta- 
neously, that it is impossible to say to whom 
the honour should be awarded. 

The present Editor begs to express his obli- 
gations to one or the other of those volumes — 
" honour to whom honour is due" — he cannot 

say. 

This Volume contains, as far as it was pos- 
sible to give in so brief a space, all there is 
notable of Andrew Marvell. 

E. P. H. 

Fulfwd, Yorh 
1853. 



CONTENTS, 



Chap. I. — Hull, the Netherlands of England in the 

Old Time 1 

II.— The Life of Marvell . . .15 

III.— The Member for Hull : His Words and 

Deeds . . .3? 

IV.— Marvell as a Poet . . 80 

Extracts. — The Garden . . .86 

A Drop of Dew . , 88 

To his Coy Mistress . . 91 

The Unfortunate Lover . 93 

The Gallery . . .95 

The Fair Singer . . 97 

The Match . . . ib. 

The Mower against Gardens . 99 

Damon, the Mower . .100 

The Mower to the Glow- Worm 103 

The Mower's Song . .104 
Ametas and Thestylis making Hay 

Ropes . 105 
Dialogue between Soul and Body 106 



CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Extracts. — A Dialogue between the Resolved 

Soul and Created Pleasure 107 

The Coronet . . .112 

Remonstrance against Cruelty 11 S 

Character of Holland . .115 

Britannia and Raleigh . 119 

On Colonel Blood's Attempt to steal 

the Crown . . 125 

On Milton's Paradise Lost . 1 26 

Eyes and Tears . . 1 29 

Bermudas . . .131 

The Nymph complaining for the 

Loss of her Fawn . .432 

An Horatian Ode upon Cromwell's 

Return from Ireland . 136 

Chap. V.— Marvell, the Polemic and the Wit 143 

Extracts. — The Press . . .152 

Improper Clergymen . 156 

Bishops . . .162 

VI.— The " No Popery" Cry in Marvell's Time 169 

Extracts. — Nero and Caligula . .171 

Church Contentions . 175 

Church Ceremonies . 177 

The Venom of Parker . 178 

Miscellaneous Witticisms . 180 

VII. — Extracts from Marvell's Familiar Epistles 182 

VIII. — Conclusion and Miscellaneous Papers . 196 

Appendix 215 



ANDREW MARVELL, 

ETC. 



CHAPTER I. 

HULL THE NETHERLANDS OF ENGLAND EN 

THE OLD TIME. 

The place in which a man is born exercises no 
inconsiderable influence over his mind ; espe- 
cially if he be of quick and vivid habits of 
thought. The mind of a man like Andrew 
Marvell would be likely to be much impressed 
with the circumstances occurring around him ; 
and Hull, in the days of Andrew Marvell, and 
especially in his boyhood, was one of the most 
noticeable places in the British Empire. 

From the time of Edward the First, from 
whom the town of Kingston-on-Hull dates its 
foundation— and whose sagacity saw its impor- 
tance as a fortification, if not as an important 
commercial depot — the town had been remark- 
able for its loyalty and attachment to mo- 
narchical rule and power. The ancient history 

B 



Z ANDREW MARVELL. 

of Hull is very rich in interest. As it stands 
now — wholly shorn of all feudal pretensions — 
it is difficult to conceive it as the place of resort 
for monarchs and barons, — surrounded by ab- 
beys and castles ; but even then its commercial 
position was of some importance ; and one of 
its merchants, in the time of Edward, (Sir 
Michael de la Pole,) was elevated to the earl- 
dom of Suffolk, became Lord Chancellor of 
England, and laid the foundation of the illus- 
trious house which at a subsequent period found 
royal blood flowing through its veins. 

We are not writing a history of Hull, and 
therefore we must not dwell upon the many 
romantic pictures which might be conjured up 
from the old graphic chronicles of this English 
Holland. In the time of Andrew Marvell it 
presents a double history ; and we are amazed 
by instances of heroic daring and dastardly 
cowardice ; the streets of the town were fre- 
quently thronged by excited numbers ; and 
the town itself becomes the theatre of events 
of startling servility and undaunted bravery. 

It was not then, indeed, as now, a port 
crowded with tradesmen and mariners ; its 
streets did not topple over or tread upon the 
heels of each other : its castellated gates guarded 
the four quarters of the tow r n ; # the High Street, 
now the dirtiest and lowest street of the town, 
was then the principal resort, and a long and 
most respectable thoroughfare ; the traders and 
ships thronged the river Hull ; while beyond 
the moats and the gates of the city stretched 
a wide outlying of beautiful and pleasant fields. 
The old streets of the ancient town are all 



ANDREW MARVKLL. 3 

departed, but the places of them are preserved 
still, and are called by the same names as 
in the old maps and plans. As to the govern- 
ment of the city, none in England was more 
individual and exempt ; the charters were 
clear, and from king to king regularly con- 
firmed. We trace in the history of the rise and 
progress of Hull, its municipalities and immu- 
nities, a resemblance to the great cities of 
Holland, and of the Hanseatic League. 

It was during the boyhood of Marvell that 
the rivers Humber and Hull, and the adjacent 
coast, were infested by pirates, so that scarce a 
merchant ship could sail with safety. Ships 
were therefore ordered to be equipped by govern- 
ment, and setting sail, they fell in with seve- 
ral of the privateers. A special commission 
was appointed for trying these at Hull, by the 
mayor and aldermen, assisted by the Earl of 
Huntingdon, Sir Thomas G-argsaon, and Sir 
Henry Gates. This was accordingly done. 
A great day would that be for Hull in those 
days, when six of these marauders were hanged, 
and their bodies sent to different parts of the 
coast, to be suspended in chains, as the best 
warnings that could then be afforded to de- 
ter others from the commission of similar crimes. 
We can conceive the hurrying crowds, and 
the civic gladness, too, for the presence of such 
men as these on the coast would be a real 
affliction to the city. 

The reign of Charles the First — in Hull it 
was a stirring time. The arbitrary proceedings 
of the king were felt especially here ; for at 
this time the fortifications of Hull were among 



4 ANDREW MARVELL. 

the most important in the kingdom, and it 
was therefore likely that the battle between 
privilege and prerogative would here be very 
hot. At the time when the first outbreak of 
the civil war took place in the north, Marvel! 
w r as in his boyhood and youth, and his native 
place was full of food for thought to one so 
swift as he to note the moral bearing of events. 
Hull presents a curious aspect to the eye. 
Watching the events of those times, it is ultra 
for both King, Parliament, Protector, and 
King again. When the first levies were made 
by the king, Charles L, for ship-money, Hull 
very willingly complied with his requests to fit 
out ships of war, ostensibly raised for the pur- 
pose of scourging the privateers on the coast. 
But at the very beginning of the strife, and be- 
fore the more open hostilities, Hull was, by the 
royal command, put in a posture of defence. 
The pretext used on this occasion was the pro- 
bability of an attack from Spain. Ships of war 
from Hull were again fitted out, and again men 
and ships were hastened away upon the unholy 
and dastardly attack upon Roehelle. Hull, 
soon after this, would be, from one gate to the 
other, loudly discussing tonnage and poundage, 
which, however, this town appears very cheer- 
fully to have paid, for it did not share as yet 
generally in the puritanic excitement of the 
time. We find costly presents of plate and 
wine presented to the Earl of Strafford, and 
other presents of equal value to the newly 
appointed Archbishop of York. Reverence 
for church usages and episcopal authority in 
Hull, in this age, was carried to the last ex- 



ANDREW MARVELL. 

treme, for in 1635, when the plague, always a 
cruel enemy of the town, raged here, and clothed 
the whole place in mourning on account of it, 
so that all business was suspended, the inhabi- 
tants fled to the country. Strict watch was kept 
at the gates, which were shut night and day, 
except when provisions were brought in. All 
assemblies and meetings were forbidden, the 
schools were entirely discontinued, and the 
churches wholly unfrequented. The whole 
town was a scene of horror, silence, and dis- 
traction, and the country people feared to at- 
tend the markets, so that, in addition to the 
great catastrophe, the price of provisions was 
very dear. Starvation and pestilence held a 
carnival in Hull. At this time a petition was 
drawn up, and presented to the Archbishop of 
York, from the mayor and corporation, and it 
is worth inserting here, as a rare and curious 
specimen of the prevalence of popish feeling 
pervading the town, and sanctioned by the 
Church of England in that day. The petition 
ran in the following words :— 

" To the Most Reverend Father in God, 
Richard. — The Humble Petition of the Mayor 
and Aldermen of Kingston-upon-Hull, in be- 
half of all the sick and visited persons of the 
said town, most humbly sheweth : — 

" That whereas the said visitation of the 
Plague, that scourge of God for our sins, has, 
by the Divine pleasure, been amongst us ever 
since July last, and not yet ceased; and" that 
whereas there are very many dead amongst us, 
and many on the recovering hand. We, there- 



O ANDREW MARVELL. 

fore, beg of your Grace, in behalf of the latter, 
that your Grace would be pleased to give 
licence and toleration unto them, that they 
may dress and eat flesh the ensuing Lent, for 
their nourishment and more speedy recovery ; 
and the rather because this town is not, as for- 
merly, served with fresh fish ; and your peti- 
tioners shall ever pray," &c. 

His Grace, in answer to their petition, con- 
doled with them, in their great affliction and 
loss ; adding, that he did not know what power 
he had to grant such an indefinite licence, but 
that in all cases of sickness and other extraor- 
dinary necessity, the ministers — upon certifi- 
cate from their physicians — might grant per- 
mission to particular persons to eat flesh during 
that holy season. He then affectionately ex- 
horted them to take that course ; beseeching 
God Almighty to heal, keep, and strengthen 
them body and soul. 

The Archbishop's advice was immediately 
complied with ; and produced, it is said, very 
salutary effects, especially on some who had 
passed the crisis of the disease. The infection, 
however, continued to spread ; and in the 
month of December, Mr. John Hamsden, al- 
derman, fell a victim to it. He was the father 
of " Deer Will," who figures so often in An- 
drew MarvelPs familiar epistles. He was 
highly esteemed and spoken of as a man very 
learned and pious. His body was carried by 
persons who had been visited of the plague, in- 
to the Trinity Church ; and there the Eev. 
Andrew Marvell, the father of the subject of 



ANDREW MARVELL. / 

our Life, had the courage, notwithstanding the 
imminent danger attending it, to give him 
Christian burial, which had been for some time 
discontinued. On this occasion also he preached 
a funeral sermon. 

For three years the town continued to be an 
infected place, and it was cut off from all direct 
communication with neighbouring towns ; the 
king issued his proclamation for the suppression 
of the markets ; persons under the supervision 
of the justices of peace supplied the town with 
provisions at the various gates. There they 
were bought by a few of the inhabitants chosen 
for that purpose, and sent in sledges to the 
town's cross, where they were disposed of: few 
pestilences afflicting the country, have ever been 
so terrible as this. It paused in its terrible 
career about 1638; in that very year Marvell 
took his degree at Cambridge, as bachelor of 
arts. It is probable, therefore, that his resi- 
dence at Hull, at this time, was only occa- 
sional; but the town was almost ruined : nearly 
three thousand persons had died of the plague, 
exclusive of those who fled out of the town, and 
died elsewhere, and those who died of other 
disorders, which almost doubled the number ; 
at length the stream of life rolled back in its 
old course. But for years the town appeared 
to lie under a taint ; and still few towns in 
England are so unhealthy. The trail of miasma 
appears to be left behind. And in 1849, when 
the cholera smote through England, Hull was 
visited again with the traces and indications 
beyond any other town in England, of the 
ancient state of plague. 



8 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Was Marvell by when his majesty Charles 
I. visited Hull? had he influence sufficient 
to he one of the forty, for whom the lofty plat- 
form was prepared ? or was he simply one of the 
hundred burgesses well mounted, who went 
forth to greet the king upon his entrance ? or 
was he only one of the crowd who looked on 
contemptuously, while Mr. Recorder with pro- 
found utterance addressed his majesty in the ri- 
diculous strain of fulsome homage which we 
here present to our readers ? 

" Most gracious sovereign ! 

" If the approaches to the sacred thrones of 
heaven and earth, had been by the same way of 
access, we had long since learned by our daily 
praying to the King of Kings, to speak as might 
become us to your sacred majesty, whom God 
has now blessed and honoured us with the pre- 
sence of. But since these are different, and we 
are not so much conversant with the latter, as 
the former, we most heartily crave your sacred 
pardon and grace for any rudeness, which is or 
may be committed ; assuring your majesty that 
it proceeds from nothing but want of knowledge 
and skill, how to receive and express our- 
selves upon the happy reception of so much 
glory, our full hearts make us almost unable 
to undergo what we most thankfully undertake, 
and would even stop all passages of speech and 
make us dumb with the awful majesty, that 
happily we behold and adore ; could but the 
greatness of our love, loyalty, and hearty affec- 
tions to you, be as well seen, understood, and 
weighed in silence as in words. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 
# * % 



This town has always been faithful and true ; 
and in respect of the zealous and loyal affec- 
tions of the people of the same to your majes- 
ty's honour and service, it may be said, as is 
said of the city of Seville in Spain, not only 
to be walled but to be garrisoned with fire ; 
not dead nor sleeping, nor unanimated, like 
senseless flints, but continually vivacious, 
waking, apparent, and sensible, in their 
courageous and boiling heat for your majesty's 
long life, welfare, and happiness ; so that as 
the town is not only yours by name, but nature, 
so it shall ever remain so. 



May your majesty live for ever and ever, and 
may all the thorns in your travels grow up into 
crowns ; may your battles be always crowned 
with laurels, and may good success always at- 
tend your actions and desires. May years be 
added unto your days, and length of time till 
time shall be no more ; and that your continu- 
ance amongst us may still be an ornament and 
blessing to the present age, and an eternal 
admiration, blessing, and glory to all that are 
to come." 

Fulsome and pompous enough our readers 
doubtless must think ; but it did not stay here ; 
the servile phrase was to be appropriately fol- 
lowed up by the servile deed ; the people at 
b 2 



10 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Hull in those days did not stop short in their 
expressions of loyalty to king or parliament. 

But we will only notice one other event of 
this period, but a most memorable one — namely, 
the appointment of Sir John Hotham to the 
Governorship of Hull. Hull, as we have seen, 
was a place of great importance : the magazine 
was there ; the government looked upon Hull 
with great interest, when the war actually 
broke out between the parliament and king ; 
the latter again came to Hull, but was by Sir 
John Hotham refused admittance. He told his 
majesty that " he durst not open the gates to 
him, being entrusted by the parliament with 
the safety of the town." The king told him 
that he believed he had no orders from the par- 
liament to shut the gates against him, or to 
keep him out of the town, to which he replied 
that his majesty's train was so great that if it 
were admitted he should not be able to give a 
good account of his trust to those who had em- 
ployed him. The king then proposed " to enter 
with twenty of his attendants only, and that 
the rest should stay without the gates ; this 
proposal, however, the governor refused. — 
Charles then desired him to come out of the 
gates, that he might confer more particularly 
with him, and assured him on his royal word of 
his safety and liberty to return. But this also 
the governor refused to comply with. His 
majesty then told him that this act of his was 
unparalleled, so it would produce some notable 
effect ; that it was not possible for him to sit 
down under such an indignity, but that he 
would immediately proclaim him a traitor, and 



AX DREW MAIiVELL. 11 

proceed against him as such : that this diso- 
bedience of his would probably bring many 
miseries on the kingdom, and in its consequence 
might involve much loss of blood : all which 
might be avoided if he performed the duty of a 
subject ; and therefore he further advised him 
to think seriously of it, that the growth of so 
many calamities might be prevented, which, if 
they took place, must lie heavy on his con- 
science." 

Sir John Hotham probably acted on this 
occasion with decision, because he was sur- 
rounded by men more decided than himself; 
but even now, it is said, he was in a state of 
great confusion. Distraction was in his looks. 
He fell on his knees, and began to talk of the 
trust he had received from the parliament ; in 
the end, wishing that God would bring confu- 
sion upon him and his if he were not a faithful 
and loyal subject ; but he plainly denied his 
majesty admission into the town. Nearly the 
whole day the king continued before the town. 
At five o'clock he proceeded to Beverly, after 
two heralds had, by the king's command, pro- 
claimed Sir John Hotham a traitor. This act 
of the governor's led to discussions in the House 
of Commons, and counter proclamations in de- 
fiance of the king, by which his declaring the 
governor a traitor was also declared to be a 
breach of the privileges of parliament. 

During the whole period of the Civil War 
no part of the kingdom presents us with so 
complicated and romantic an instance as this 
of Sir John Hotham and his son, at Hull. 
The king sought pertinaciously to obtain pos- 



12 ANDREW MARVELL. 

session of the town ; but the Parliament re- 
moved the magazine to the Tower of London. 
Still the king held on the siege to the wonder 
of many. Then the sluices were pulled up, 
and the whole of the country about Hull laid 
under water ; the fortifications were strength- 
ened, and all around the city and within, was 
put in nn active state of warfare. The king 
spent the most of his time at Beverly and 
York. In the end there transpired a long 
series of treacheries on the part of Hotham — 
negociations with Earl Digby, who had entered 
and continued at Hull, in disguise — negocia- 
tions with the Earl of Newcastle, the general 
of the king — negociations with the queen. At 
last he had determined on giving up the town 
to the royal party ; but he had all along been 
carefully watched : he was known : and he and 
his son, (as great a traitor as himself,) were 
taken, and after innumerable efforts to save 
them, were beheaded on Tower Hill. Mr. 
James, in his " Arran Neil," has very vividly 
coloured these circumstances with poetry and 
romance. 

From these particulars, so briefly given, the 
reader will have some idea of the importance 
of the town of Hull at this period ; visited, 
during the early lifetime of Marvel], by the 
two most terrible scourges of any town — pesti? 
lence and war. How much must have hap- 
pened to draw out his thoughts and to give a 
bias to his opinions ! It is amidst exciting 
scenes and intensely interesting circumstances 
that we live longest and most. The chronology 
of time is brief and small compared with 



ANDREW MARVELL. 13 • 

the chronology of ideas. In new scenes, in 
startling events, how the mental action is 
quickened ; how there is imparted to the whole 
nature a heat and life unknown to it in calmer 
moods or serener times. As Marvell beheld 
for years, all around him, the terrible evidences 
of death ; all men's hearts failing them for fear, 
and crowds of his neighbours huddled away 
promiscuously to the sepulchre, without the 
time for the due observance of form and cere- 
mony for the procession — the bell, the prayer — 
but pushed from their habitations and through 
the streets, almost unrecked of by the survivors, 
in the midst of the general fear ; he would be 
compelled to live through a larger amount of 
emotions than in the more quiet and ordinary 
course of nature ; so when the Plague passed 
away, and the whole of the neighbourhood of 
the town lay under water, except one or two 
short and absolutely necessary approaches ; as 
armed men paced to and fro through the 
streets, or ranged themselves along the walls, 
and the rude notes of war ran over the town ; 
amidst the constant discussions of prerogative 
and privilege, the notes of defiance, the ru- 
mours of treachery, his own opinions — already 
from his father probably highly republican — 
deepened by the preaching, and perhaps the 
friendship, of the Rev. William Styles, the 
minister of Trinity Church, who had the cou- 
rage and principle to withstand the attempted 
bribings of the Queen, through Lady Bland, — 
the very posture of the town, situated so far 
from any large cities, — so important, — so self- 
governed and defended — defying to his very 



14 ANDREW MARVELL. 

face the King from its walls ; all this would 
tend to stimulate the mind and the opinion of 
Marvell. True, all his time was not spent in 
Hull during those exciting days, but a large 
portion of it was ; and wherever his time was 
spent, he would find innumerable interests with 
which he was connected to interest him in the 
town. We still have to learn, and it appears 
difficult to understand, how he attained so 
much power there, as to become through so 
many years the Member for the town. We 
have, perhaps, said enough to show how alter- 
nately servile and independent was the town ; 
and surely it showed its independence in the 
election of Marvell to serve it in Parliament 
through so many years — even after it sank into 
a servile homage to Charles II. ; the day of its 
independence returned, too, when the succeed- 
ing king dictated to it its Popish Members — 
Recorder and Mayor wringing from it, by the 
hand of the notorious and atrocious Jeffreys, its 
Charters, and again placing it in the posture of 
civil war. During the whole of the mighty 
drama of the Stuart dynasty, no single town of 
all the provinces awakens so much interest in 
our mind as Hull. 



15 



CHAPTER II. 



THE LIFE OF MARVELL. 



The name of Andrew Marvell is a name very 
often pronounced and well known, but of him, 
for the most part, nothing is known. No edi- 
tion of his works has been published for nearly 
a century, and that edition, in three bulky 
quarto volumes, is seldom to be met with. JNo 
popular life of him, with a general selection 
from his writings, has ever been published. It 
is known that he was a wit, a poet, an incor- 
ruptible statesman, but his reputation is my- 
thical. We pronounce his name — we give 
him credit for his powers — we know nothing 
generally of them. 

How rich is the literature of England in for- 
gotten names, or names which, if not forgotten, 
yet standing as the synonyms of every kind of 
excellence, have retained to the great masses 
of people no more than the most general fea- 
tures, the faint outline or profile. We read 
the lives of Plutarch, and the anecdotal chroni- 
cles of the ancients, and we suppose that hero- 
ism and virtue like that recorded are unusual, 
and never seen on English ground. We have 



16 ANDREW MAKVELL. 

confined our knowledge of popular British bio- 
graphy to a few names, and we have confined 
our knowledge of writings to the high head- 
lands of literature ; but our country contains 
the tombs and ancient dwelling places of many 
of her sons, whose worth and moral dignity were 
of the very highest order, and whose writings 
contain gems of beauty, if they do not realise 
all the glory and the magnificence of the more 
favoured children of genius. 

Andrew Marvell was one of such men. He 
lived in a time when England perhaps boasted 
a greater number of the first class minds than 
any other of our history — The Cromwell Era, 
that age of men who, in the cabinet, the senate, 
in the pulpit, in the study, or the field, evinced 
the highest order of genius. That was the age 
of genius. The pen and the sword were both 
wielded by men the most extraordinary of our 
land. In every department their splendour of 
genius, and scholarship, and eloquence, and 
power, shone forth. From every sect and party, 
from every profession, men appeared to cast a 
light peculiar all around that time. They were 
great in all positions, and they bore their great 
successes and great reverses like no other body 
of men with whom we have any acquaintance. 
How much we have derived from them in 
poetry, in theology, in statesmanship. How 
the mind lingers along the memory of those 
men ! What rivalry of eminence in the scenes 
where Milton, defending the liberty of the 
people and the soil, and Selden, defending the 
liberty of the seas, and Taylor, defending the 
liberty of conscience, where Howe drops his 



ANDREW MARVELL. 17 

sentences of honey in hives of gold, and Owen 
builds his wonderful ethical edifices, where 
Pynrs clear sighted vision sketched the rights 
and privileges of English citizens, and Sydney 
invested them with the Roman toga and lictor, 
where Elliot sublimely discoursed of the mo- 
narchy of men, where Marvell incorporated the 
discourse in his life. 

" It is the privilege, 1 ' says Hartley Coleridge^ 
" of posterity to adjust the characters of illus- 
trious persons. Andrew Marvell has therefore 
become a celebrated name, and is now known 
as one of the most incorruptible Patriots that 
England, or any other country, ever produced. 
A character so exalted and pure, astonished a 
corrupt age, and overawed even majesty itself. 
His morals and his manners were Roman : — 
he lived on the turnip of Curtius, and would 
have bled at Philippi. As a Poet, too, Marvell 
possessed no vulgar genius ; and as a Satirist, 
he was of the keenest in the luxuriant age of 
Charles II. It is to be regretted that our 
notices of him are less ample and continuous 
than his personal merit deserves, or his exalted 
walk of public action would induce us to ex- 
pect. His name, indeed, is generally known — ■ 
a few anecdotes of his honesty are daily repeated 
— and a single copy of verses, no adequate 
sample of his poetic powers, keeping its station 
in the vestibule of c Paradise Lost,' records him 
as the friend and admirer of Milton. But the 
detail of his daily life — the simple background 
of the stirring picture — the inestimable transac- 
tions which should make up the unity and 
totality of his history — might indeed be easily 



18 ANDREW MARVELL. 

supplied by imagination, but cannot be derived 
from document or tradition. 

" The mind of Marvell, like the street and 
the wall of Jerusalem, was built in troublous 
times. From his youth upwards, he was inured 
to peril and privation ; and, though he does not 
appear to have been personally engaged in civil 
conflict, he could not escape the tyrannous trials 
of those c evil days' — reproach and wicked soli- 
citation, and sundering of dearest ties, by violent 
death, and exile, and crueller alienation. Yet 
if his heart was often wounded, it was never 
hardened. He ever retained and cherished his 
love of the gentle, the beautiful, and the imagi- 
native. His virtue, firm and uncompromising, 
was never savage ; nor did his full reliance on 
his own principles make him blind to perceive, 
or dumb to acknowledge, whatever goodness 
appeared in men of other faith and allegiance. 
He was a wit and a poet, and as these qualities 
made him no worse a patriot or christian, so 
they probably made him a more agreeable 
man." 

^\ Marvell was born at Kingston-upon-Hull, 
/on the 15th of November, 1620; and dis- 
covering a genius for letters, was sent, at the 
early age of fifteen, with an exhibition belong- 
ing to his native place, to Trinity College, 
Cambridge. He had not been long, however, 
before (like Chillingworth,) he was enticed 
from his studies by the Jesuits, who were then 
seeking converts with industrious proselytism 
among the young men of distinguished abilities 
— especially in the Universities ; and they suc- 
ceeded in inveigling Marvell from college to 



ANDREW MARVELL. 19 

London, where his father followed and quickly 
restored him to the University. It appears 
that, like every mind of ardent and undis- 
ciplined feeling, he went through the usual 
course of rapidly succeeding extremes and in- 
consistent opinions. So powerful and vigorous 
an intellect, however, soon subsided into ra- 
tional and wise views of the principles of 
human conduct, showing that, in proportion 
to the difficulty of discovering truth, is the 
usual estimation of its value. On the 13th of 
April, as appears from his own hand- writing, 
Marvell was again received at Trinity College, 
and during the two following years, it seems 
that he pursued his studies with unremitting 
application, when his father's lamentable death 
gave a new turn to his mind. 

The Rev. Andrew Marvell, A.M. father of 
the patriot, was born at Mildred, in Cam- 
bridgeshire, in 1586. He was a student of 
Emanuel College, in that University, where he 
took his degree of Master of Arts, in 1608. 
Afterwards, he was elected Master of the 
Grammar School at Hull, and in 1624, Lec- 
turer of Trinity Church in that town. " He 
was a most excellent preacher," says Fuller, 
" who, like a good husband, never broached 
what he had new brewed, but preached what 
he had studied some competent time before : 
insomuch that he was wont to say, that he 
would cross the common proverb, which called 
4 Saturday the working day, and Monday the 
holiday of preachers.' His excellent comment 
on St. Peter" Fuller continues, u was then 
daily desired and expected, if the envy and 



20 ANDREW MARVELL. 

covetousness of private persons, for their own 
use, deprive not the public of the benefit 
thereof."* 

Mr. Marvell greatly distinguished himself 
during the plague in 1637, by a fearless per- 
formance of his clerical duties, amid all the 
grim horrors of that devastating period ; and 
his Funeral Sermons are said to have been 
most eloquent specimens of pathetic oratory. 

In the year 1640 a melancholy accident put 
an end to this good man's life, the particulars 
of which are thus related : — 

Opposite Kingston, lived a lady whose vir- 
tue and good sense recommended her to the 
esteem of Mr. Marvell, as his piety and under- 
standing caused her to take particular notice of 
him ; from this mutual approbation arose an 
intimate acquaintance, which was soon im- 
proved into a strict friendship. This lady had 
an only daughter, whose duty, devotion, and 
exemplary behaviour, had endeared her to all 
who knew her, and rendered her the darling of 
her mother; whose fondness for her arose to 
such a height that she could scarcely bear her 
temporary absence. Mr. Marvell, desiring to 
perpetuate the friendship between the families, 
requested the lady to allow her daughter to 
come over to Kingston, to stand god-mother to 
a child of his ; to which, out of her great regard 
to him, she consented, though depriving herself 
of her daughter's company for a longer space of 
time than she would have agreed to on any 
other consideration. The young lady went 

* Fuller's Worthies, p, 159. 



ANDREW MAftVfcLt. 21 

over to Kingston accordingly^ and the cere- 
mony was performed. The next day when she 
came down to the river side, in order to return 
home, it being extremely rough, so as to render 
the passage dangerous, the watermen earnestly 
dissuaded her from any attempt to cross the 
river that day. But she, who had never wil- 
fully given her mother a moments uneasiness, 
and knew how miserable she would be, insisted 
on going, notwithstanding all that could be 
urged by the watermen, or by Mr. Marvell, 
who earnestly entreated her to return to his 
house, and wait for better weather. Finding 
her resolutely bent to venture her life rather 
than disappoint a fond parent, he told her, as 
she had brought herself into that perilous situ- 
ation on his account, he thought himself obliged, 
both in honour and conscience, to share the 
danger with her ; and having, with difficulty, 
persuaded some watermen to attempt the pass- 
age, they got into the boat. Just as they put 
off, Mr. Marvell threw his gold-headed cane 
on shore, to some of his friends, w 7 ho attended 
at the water-side, telling them, that as he 
could not suffer the young lady to go alone, 
and as he apprehended the consequence might 
be fatal, if he perished, he desired them to give 
that cane to his son, and bid him remember 
his father. Thus armed with innocence, and 
his fair charge with filial duty, they set forward 
to meet their inevitable fate. The boat was 
upset, and they were both lost. 

Hartley Coleridge says, " We have seen the 
circumstances of the elder Marvell's death some- 
what differently related, and though the narra- 



22 ANDREW MARVELL. 

live may not exactly accord with modern 
theories, we shall give it for the benefit of those 
who know — 

" There are more things in heaven and earth, 
Than are dreamt of in our philosophy." 

According to this tradition, Mr. MarvelFs 
apprehensions arose, not from the fears of 
watermen, nor from the minacious murmurs of 
the wind ; but from that prophetic presenti- 
ment, that second sight of dissolution, which 
like the shadow on the sun dial, points darkly 
at the hour of departure. The morning was 
clear, the breeze fair, and the company gay ; 
when stepping into the boat the reverend man 
exclaimed — " Ho for Heaven," so saying, threw 
his staff ashore, and left it to Providence to ful- 
fil its awful warning. Of course we ask nobody 
to believe this unless he chooses, but we should 
as readily believe it, upon sufficient evidence, 
as any event in history. So many are the 
similar cases on record, that he who would re- 
ject them all, must be a person of indefatigable 
incredulity. The prophetic warnings have oc- 
curred to young and old, kings and rustics, 
saints and sinners ; to Bentley, the orthodox ; 
to Oliver Cromwell, the fanatic ; to Littleton, 
the rake ; to Nelson, the hero ; and to Alex- 
ander Stephens, the buffoon. 

Thus perished Mr. Marvell, in the 54th 
year of his age, a man eminent for virtue and 
learning, universally lamented by his friends, 
and the people of Hull in general. The son 
gives this character of his father, in " The 
Rehearsal Transprosed ;" — " He died before 



ANDREW MARVELL. 23 

the war broke out, having lived with some re- 
putation both for piety and learning ; and was, 
moreover, a conformist to the established rites 
of the church of England ; though I confess 
none of the most over running or eager in them." 

It is said that the lady, the mother of the 
person drowned, Mrs. Skinner, of Thornton 
College, however, after her sorrow was some- 
what abated, sent for young Mar veil, who 
was then at Cambridge, and did what she could 
towards supplying the loss he had sustained, 
and at her decease left him all that she pos- 
sessed. 

Whether Marvell went down to Hull to 
take possession of the small fortune his father 
had left him, and by possessing it, grew negli- 
gent of his studies, is uncertain ; but it appears 
that he, and four other students had absented 
themselves from their exercises, and been guilty 
of other indiscretions ; which made the Masters 
and Seniors come to a resolution to refuse them 
the benefits of the College. 

These particulars are made clear by the fol- 
lowing extract and letter from the learned Dr. 
Michael Lort, of Cambridge. 

i( In the addition book of scholars of Trinity College, 
Cambridge, is this entry, p. 266. 13 of April, 163$. An- 
dreas Marvell juratus et admissus. 

"In the old conclusion book, p. 169. Sept. 24th, 1641. 
It is agreed by the master and seniors, that Mr. Carter, 
Dominus Wakefield, Dominus Marvel, Dominus Water- 
house, and Dominus Maye*, in regard that some of them 
are reported to be married, and the others look not .after 

* Who afterwards translated Lucan. 



24 ANDREW MARVELL. 

their dayes nor acts, shall receive no more benefit of the 
college, and shall be out of their places, unless they shew 
just cause to the college for the contrary in three months.' ' 



Trinity College, Cambridge, Nov. 25, 1765, 

Sir, — " After long search in some of the old books be- 
longing to the college, I find the above particulars con- 
cerning Andrew Marvell, and those only. 

" On what authority the writer of his life in the General 
Dictionary, quotes the college register for the date of his 
admission into the college in 1633, I know not, since the 
earliest register I can find of such admission, begins in 1635. 

" Of the admission of fellows and scholars on the foun- 
dation, we have a register from the beginning ; and from 
that I have extracted the first quotation above, which is 
written in Marvell's own hand, and which I have endea- 
voured to imitate as near as I could. 

"The second will explain the charge brought against 
him by Parker, and take off any reflection on his character, 
if such was intended thereby, for I have not seen Parker's 
charge. From this extract it appears only that Marvell 
was expelled for non-residence, then much more strictly 
enjoined than it is now. The days mentioned therein, 
being the certain number allowed by statute in the year to 
absentees ; and the acts means the exercises enjoyned also 
by the statutes to be performed. 

iC It does not appear by any subsequent entry, whether 
Marvell did, or did not, comply with this order. 

" I wish this account may come time enough for the 
purpose you wanted it : why it did not sooner, is of no 
great consequence now to mention. If at any time you, 
or any of your friends, should have any enquiries to make 



ANDREW MARVELL. 25 

that I maybe able to satisfy, I beg you will freely com- 
mand, 

" Sir, 
" Your most obedient and most faithful servant, 

"MICHAEL LORT."* 

From the circumstance of this collegia! re- 
cord, we may infer that young Marvell left 
Cambridge about 1642, as we do not find that 
he ever attempted to vindicate himself against 
the charge. After this we presume he com- 
menced his travels through the most polite 
parts of Europe. It appears he was at Rome, 
from his Poem entitled, " Flecnoe, an English 
Priest," in which, though it be written in a 
slovenly metre, he describes, with great humour 
and satire, that wretched Poet, Richard Flec- 
noe, who, as Dryden expresses it, — 

" In prose and verse was owned without dispute, 
Through all the realms of nonsense, absolute. 
Whose brows, thick fogs, instead of glories grace, 
And lambent dulness plays around his face." 

It is probable that, during this excursion 
into Italy, Marvell made his first acquaintance 
with the immortal John Milton, who was at 
that time abroad. They met in Rome, and 
associated together, where they publicly argued 
against the superstitions of the Romish Church, 
even within the verge of the Vatican. It is 
thought by many, that Milton's great poem 
would have remained longer in obscurity, had 



* The above letter is quoted from Captain Thompson'* 
Edition of Marvell' s Life and Works. 



26 ANDREW MARVELL. 

it not been for Marvell, and Dr. Samuel Bar- 
row, a Physician, who wrote it into favour, 
Marvell's poem, first prefixed to the second 
edition of Paradise Lost, is as reputable to his 
judgment and poetic talents, as to his friendship. 

Dr. Johnson endeavours to imagine what 
were the feelings and reflections of Milton 
during the composition of Paradise Lost. His 
conceptions and language on this subject we 
have often admired : — " Fancy, " says he, u can 
hardly forbear to conjecture with what temper 
Milton surveyed the silent progress of his work, 
and marked its reputation stealing its way in 
a kind of subterraneous current through fear 
and silence. I cannot but conceive him calm 
and confident, little disappointed, not at all 
dejected, relying on his own merit with steady 
consciousness, and waiting without impatience 
the vicissitudes of opinion, and the impartiality 
of a future generation/' 

When Marvell arrived in Paris, on his 
return to England, he had an opportunity of 
exercising his wit on one Lancelot Joseph de 
Maniban, a whimsical Abbe, who pretended 
to enter into the qualities of those he had 
never seen, and to foretell their good or bad 
fortune by their hand-writing * This ridicu- 



* D" Israeli, in his " Curiosities of Literature, Second 
Series" has two interesting chapters on Autographs and 
Hand- writing, from which we give the following extract : — 

" The art of judging of the characters of persons by 
their writing can only have any reality when the pen, 
acting without constraint, may become an instrument 
guided by, and indicative of, the natural dispositions. But 
regulated, as the pen is too often, by a mechanical process, 



ANDREW MAEVELL. 27 

lous prognosticates received a severe lashing 
from Marvell in a Poem written in Latin, and 
addressed to him. 

After this, we have no information respect- 
ing Marvel], till the year J 652, a space of 
eleven years. To fill up this interval, some of 
his Biographers have sent him to Constantinople, 
and made him secretary to an ambassy, though 
during the Commonwealth it does not appear 
there was any minister in Turkey. It is pro- 



which the present race of writing-masters seem to have 
contrived for their own convenience, a whole school ex- 
hibits a similar hand-writing. The pupils are forced, in 
their automatic motions, as if acted on by the pressure of 
a steam-engine. A bevy of beauties will now write such 
fac-similes of each other, that, in a heap of letters 
presented to the most sharp-sighted lover, to select that 
of his mistress — though like Bassanio among the caskets, 
his happiness should be risked on the choice — he w T ould 
despair of fixing on the right one, all appearing to have 
come from the same rolling press. Even brothers of dif- 
ferent tempers have been taught by the same master to 
give the same form to their letters, the same regularity to 
their line, and have made our hand-writings as monotonous 
as are our characters in the present state of society. The 
true physiognomy of writing will be lost among our rising 
generation ; it is no longer a face that we are looking on, 
but a beautiful mask of a single pattern ; and the fashion- 
able hand- writing of our young ladies is like the former, 
tight-lacing of their mothers' youthful days, when every 
one alike had what was supposed to be a fine shape ! 

" Assuredly, Nature would prompt every individual to 
have a distinct sort of writing, as she has given a counte- 
nance, a voice, and a manner. The flexibility of the 
muscles differs with every individual, and the hand will 
follow the direction of the thoughts, and the emotions, 
and the habits of the writers. The phlegmatic will por- 
tray his words, while the playful haste of the volatile will 
scarcely sketch them ; the slovenly will blot, and efface, 
and scrawl ; while the neat and orderly minded will view 



28 ANDREW MARVELL. 

bable the mistake has arisen from the fact of 
Marvell afterwards attending Lord Carlisle 
in that capacity to Petersburgh. 

When we consider the splendid talents pos- 
sessed by Marvell, we have reason to lament 
that we know so little of him during this 
period, especially when we reflect on his active 
turn of mind, and the acuteness of his percep- 
tion. His observations and reflections on men 
and manners would have been inestimable. 



themselves in the paper before their eyes. The merchant's 
clerk will not write like the lawyer or the poet. Even 
nations are distinguished by their writing : the variableness 
of the Frenchman, and the delicacy and suppleness of the 
Italian, are perceptibly distinct from the slowness and 
strength of the pen discoverable in the phlegmatic German, 
Dane, and Swede. When we are in grief, we do not 
write as we should in joy. The elegant and correct mind 
which has acquired the fortunate habit of a fixity of at- 
tention, will write with scarcely an erasure on the page, 
as Fenelon, and Gray, and Gibbon; while we find in 
Pope's manuscripts the perpetual struggles of correction, 
and the eager and rapid interlineations struck off in heat. 
Lavater's notion of hand-writing is by no means chimeri- 
cal : nor was General Paoli fanciful, when he told Mr. 
Northcote that he had decided on the character and dis- 
position of a man from his letters and hand-writing. 

" Long before the days of Lavater — Shenstone, in one 
of his letters, said ' I want to see Mrs. Jago's hand- writing, 
that I may judge of her temper.' One great truth must, 
however, be conceded to the opponents of the physiognomy 
of writing ; general rules can be laid down. Yet the vital 
principle must be true, that the hand-writing bears an 
analogy to the character of the writer, as all voluntary 
actions are characteristic of the individual. But many 
causes operate to counteract or obstruct this result. 

" Oldys, in one of his curious notes, was struck by the 
distinctness of character in the hand- writing of several of 
Our kings." 

Hartley Colericfge also remarks : — " The race of the 



ANDREW MARVELL. 29 

It appears from the following letter, written 
at the commencement of the year 1652, by 
Milton to Bradshaiee, on behalf of Marvell, 
that he was an unsuccessful candidate for the 
office of Latin Secretary. By this application 
of Milton he no doubt owed his subsequent 
introduction into that office. The letter is 
endorsed for " The honourable the Lord Brad- 
shawe :" — 



Manibans is by no means extinct ; and however futile may 
be the pretence to prognosticate the contingencies of a life, 
from the curves and angles of an autograph, we do most 
seriously maintain, that a diagnosis of a character may be 
derived from the physiognomy of a manuscript. The 
goodness or badness of the writing has nothing to do with 
the question ; neither is the expression of a countenance 
dependent upon its beauty or homeliness. Indeed, Cali- 
graphy, as practiced by masters, and taught to young 
ladies, in six lessons, is a species of dissimulation, intended, 
like the Client erfieldian politeness of a courtier, to conceal 
the workings of thought and feeling — to substitute the 
cold, slippery, polished opacity of a frozen pool, for the 
ripple and transparency of a flowing brook. But into 
every habitual act, which is performed unconsciously, 
earnestly, or naturally, something of the mood of the 
moment, and something of the predominant habit of the 
mind unavoidably passes : — the play of the features, the 
motions of the limbs, the paces, the tones, the very folds 
of the drapery (especially if it have long been worn), are 
all significant. A mild, considerate man, hangs up his 
hat in a very different style from a stern and determined 
one. A Dissenter does not shake hands like a High- 
churchman. But there is no act into which the character 
enters more fully, than into that of writing; for it is 
generally performed alone or unobserved ; seldom is it, in 
adults, the object of attention ; and takes place while 
the thoughts, and the natural current of feeling, are in 
full operation." 



SO ANDREW MARVELL. 

"My Lord, — 

"'But that it would be an interruption to the public, 
wherein your studies are perpetually employed, I should 
now or then venture to supply this my enforced absence 
with a line or two, though it were onely my business, and 
that would be noe slight one, to make my due acknow- 
ledgments of your many favoures ; which I both doe at 
this time, and ever shall ; and have this farder, which I 
thought my parte to let you know of that there will be 
with you to-morrow, upon some occasion of business, a 
gentleman whose name is Mr. Marvile; a man whom, both 
by report, and the converse I have had with him, of sin- 
gular desert for the state to make use of ; who alsoe offers 
himselfe, if there be any imployment for him. His father 
was the Minister of Hull ; and he hath spent four years 
abroad, in Holland, France, Italy, and Spaine, to very good 
purpose, as I believe, and the gaineing of those four lan- 
guages ; besides, he is a sch oiler, and well read in the 
Latin and Greek authors ; and no doubt of an approved 
conversation, for he comes now lately out of the house of 
the Lord Fairfax, who was Generall, where he was intrusted 
to give some instructions in the Languages to the Lady his 
daughter. If upon the death of Mr. Weckherlyn, the 
Councell shall think that I shall need any assistance in the 
performance of my place (though for my part I find no en- 
cumbrances of that which belongs to me, except it be in 
point of attendance at Conferences with Ambassadors, 
which I must confess, in my condition, I am not fit for), it 
would be hard for them to find a man soe fit every way for 
that purpose as this gentleman ; one who I believe, in a 
short time, would be able to doe them as much service as 
Mr. Ascan. This, nry Lord, I write sincerely, without any 
other end than to perform my duety to the public, in 
helping them to an humble servant; laying aside those 



ANDREW MARVELL. SI 

jealousies, and that emulation, which mine own condition 
might suggest to me, by bringing in such a coadjutor; and 
remaine, 

" My Lord, 
u Your most obliged, and faithful Servant, 

u John Milton." 
*< Feb. 21, 1652." 

In 1 653, Marvell was appointed by Crom- 
well to be tutor to his nephew, a Mr. Dutton, 
as appears from the following letter : — 

' * May it please youb Excellence, — 
*' It might, perhaps, seem fit for me to seek out words 
to give your Excellence thanks for myself. But, indeed, 
the only civility which it is proper for me to practice with 
so eminent a person, is to obey you, and to perform honestly 
the work that you have set me about. Therefore I shall 
use the time that your Lordship is pleased to allow me for 
writing, not onely for that purpose for which you have 
given me it; that is to render you an account of Mr. Duttoru 
I have taken care to examine him several times in the pr e 
sence of Mr. Oxenbridge;* as those who weigh and tell 

* John Oxenbridge, M.A., was born at Daventry, in 
Northamptonshire, January 30, 1608. He took his degree 
in 1631, and the following year began publicly to preach 
the gospel. After two voyages to the Bermudas he 
returned to England, and settled as pastor to a Church at 
Beverley, in Yorkshire, in 1664. After his ejectment from 
Eton College, Dr. Calamy says, u he went to Berwick- 
upon-Tweed, where he resided till silenced by the Bar- 
tholomew Act. He then went to Surinam, in South Ame- 
rica, and from thence, in 1667, to Barbadoes. In 1669, he 
went to New England, where he succeeded Mr. Davenport, 
as pastor in the first Church at Boston, and there he died 
suddenly, December 28, 1674, being seized with apoplexy 
towards the close of a Sermon, which he was preaching at 
the Boston Lecture." 



82 ANDREW MARVELL. 

over money before some witness ere they take charge of 
it ; for I thought that there might be some lightness in the 
coyn, or errour in the telling, which hereafter I should be 
bound to make good. Therefore, Mr. Oxenbridge is the 
best to make your Excellency an impartial relation thereof : 
I shall only say, that I shall strife according to my best 
understanding (that is, according to those rules your Lord- 
ship hath given me,) to increase whatsoever talent he may 
have already. Truly, he is of gentle and waxen dispo- 
sition ; and, God be praised, I cannot say he hath brought 
with him any evil impression; and 1 shall hope to set 
nothing into his spirit but what may be of a good sculp- 
ture. He hath in him two things that make youth most 
easy to be managed, — modesty, which is the bridle to vice; 
and emulation, which is the spur to virtue. And the care 
which your Excellence is pleased to take of him, is no 
small encouragement, and shall be so represented to him ; 
but, above all, I shall labour to make him sensible of his 
duty to God ; for then we begin to serve faithfully, when 
we consider he is our master. And in this, both he and I 
owe infinitely to your lordship, for having placed us in so 
godly a family as that of Mr. Oxenbridge, whose doctrine 
and example are like a book and a map, not only instruct- 
ng the ear, but demonstrating to the eye, which way we 
ought to travell; and Mrs. Oxenbridge has looked so well to 
him, that he hath already much mended his complexion ; 
and now she is ordering his chamber, that he may delight 
to be in it as often as his studys require. For the rest, 
most of this time has been spent in acquainting ourselves 
with him ; and truly he is chearfull, and I hope thinks us 
to be good company. I shall, upon occasion, henceforward 
inform your Excellence of any particularities in our little 
affairs, for so I esteem it to be my duty. I have no more 
at present, but to give thanks to God for your lord- 



ANDREW MAKVELL. 33 

ship, and to beg grace of him, that I may approve my- 
self, 

" Your Excellency's 
" Most humble and faithful Servant, 

" Andrew Marvell," 
" Windsor, July 2Sth, 1653.' , 

u Mr. Dutton presents his most humble service to 
your Excellence." 



It appears, that when Milton's " Second De- 
fence" was published, it was presented to the 
Protector by Marvel], whose Letter to Milton 
we here insert : — 



"Honoured Sir, 
" I did not satisfy myself in the account I gave you of 
presenting your book to my Lord ; although it seemed to 
me that I wrote to you all which the messenger's speedy 
return the same night would permit me : and I perceive 
that, by reason of that haste, I did not give you satisfac- 
tion, neither concerning the delivery of your letter at the 
same time. Be pleased, therefore, to pardon me, and 
know I tendered them both together. But my Lord read 
not the letter while I was with him ; which I attributed to 
our dispatch, and some other business tending thereto, 
which I therefore wished ill to, so far as it hindered an 
affair much better, and of greater importance — I mean 
that of reading your letter. And to tell you truly mine 
own imagination, I thought that he would not open it 
while I was there, because he might suspect that I, deli- 
vering it just upon my departure, might have brought in 
it some second proposition, like to that which you had 
before made to him, by your letter, to my advantage. 

c 2 



34 ANDREW MARVELL. 

However, I assure myself that he has since read it with 
much satisfaction. 

"Mr. Oxenbridge, on his return from London, will, I 
know, give you thanks for his book, as I do with all 
acknowledgment and humility, for that you have sent me. 
I shall now study it, even to getting it by heart. When I 
consider how equally it turns and rises, with so many 
figures, it seems to me a Trajan's Column, in whose wind- 
ing ascent we see embossed the several monuments of 
your victories ; and Salmasius and Morus make up as 
great a triumph as that of Decebalus ; whom, too, for 
ought I know, you shall have forced, as Trajan the other, 
to make themselves a way, out of a just desperation. 

" I have an affectionate curiosity to know what becomes 
of Colonel Overton's business, and am exceeding glad to 
think that Mr. Skinner has got near you : the happiness 
which I at the same time congratulate to him, and envy, 
there being none who doth, if I may so say, more jealously 
honour you than, 

" Honoured Sir, 
" Your most affectionate humble servant, 

u Eton, June 2, 1654. Andrew Marvell." 

" For my most honoured friend, John Milton, Esq., 
" Secretary for Foreign Affairs, 
At his house in Petty France, Westminster." 

In 1657, Marvell was appointed Assistant 
Latin Secretary to the Protector, with Milton.* 

* Mr. Horace Smith, in his interesting Novel of "Bram- 
bletye House," alludes to Milton and Marvell's association 
as Latin Secretaries : — "At the upper end, before a desk, 
on which were several folio volumes, two gentlemen were 
seated, one of whom was writing from the dictation of his 
companion. The latter, who was rather below the middle 
size, wearing his light brown hair parted at the foretop, 



ANDREW MARVELL* 35 

From the death of Cromwell we have no further 
account of him, till the Parliament .of 1660. — 
Notwithstanding his punctuality in writing by 
every post, concerning the business of Parlia- 
ment, no letters to the Corporation of Hull re- 
main of an earlier date than November 17th, 
that year. Perhaps his previous letters might 
have been given up to him, or destroyed at his 
request, upon the Restoration, when affairs put 
on a very different appearance. 

In 1660, Marvell came forward in his patri- 
otic and parliamentary character. There is 
not one action of his parliamentary life that 
deserves censure : the part he took was honour- 
able to himself, and useful to his country ; and 
though virtue is often successfully invaded 
by flattery, he maintained his sincerity unse- 
duced, when truth and chastity were crimes in 
the lewd circle of Charles's court. 

<< Tempt not, he said, and stood ; 



But Satan, smitten with amazement, fell." 

and hanging down on either side of his singularly comely 
and majestic countenance, took not the smallest notice of 
them as they passed, but continued dictating. His ama- 
nuensis, a strong set figure, with. a round face, cherry 
cheeks, hazel eyes, and brown hair, bowed to them with a 
cheerful smile, as they walked through into an inner 
apartment, but did not speak. These were the immortal 
John Milton, Latin Secretary to the Protector, and the 
scarcely less illustrious Andrew Marvell, recently ap- 
pointed his Assistant ; men w r orthy to sit enthroned in 
that costly library, and to be surrounded by the great and 
kindred intellect of the world ; men who have become the 
heirs of never-dying fame, while with one or two excep- 
tions, the crowd of nobles and grandees that thronged the 
adjoining saloon, passed rapidly away into irredeemable 
oblivion." 



86 ANDREW MAliVELL. 

Our design, in this chapter, is to condense 
into as brief a space as possible, the events in 
the life of our hero. — like most men whose life 
although passed in the service of their country, 
yet has passed in silence. The life of Marvell 
does not abound in adventure or anecdote — it 
appears mostly as the life of a recluse — a her- 
mit, living in senates and in cities. He pro- 
bably was a cheerful companion ; but we con- 
ceive him on the whole most quiet and reserved. 
He would open his heart very freely to his 
friend Eamsden, and perhaps one or two 
others : but it was only in the very innermost 
circle of his friendships that his soul was allow- 
ed to be seen, His life strikingly reminds us 
of the Lives of Plutarch. Remembered by 
one or two anecdotal illustrations of character 
— of two or three fine and lofty sentiments — it 
appears as if the whole life was distilled into 
those two or three illustrations. He has been 
called the " British Aristides ;" and all that is 
on record of the Great Worthy of Greece, we 
could conceive of Marvell. He was in a word 
religiously just, inexorably incorruptible : he 
was fitted to perceive excellence in ail the men 
and the movements of his times. He was not 
in any thing ultra. He saw the falsehood of 
extremes : he saw plainly the wants of England 
— the curses and the miseries of England ; and 
the whole actions of his life appear to be the 
result of a large and catholic tone. 



37 



CHAPTER III. 



THE MEMBER FOU HULL. 

It has appeared to us, in reading the History 
of Hull, somewhat remarkable to find Mar veil 
continuing tKrough a long course of years a 
member, .for Hull was a very loyal city ; and 
when the Restoration took place, the Corpora- 
tion, with all becoming servility, hastened to 
redeem themselves from any disgrace attaching 
to them from their having regarded the reign 
of Cromwell with too favourable an eye. As 
the addresses to Cromwell and to Charles II. 
illustrate the conscience of the period, they 
may be appropriately quoted here. On the day 
Cromwell was proclaimed Lord Protector, he 
was addressed by the mayor and corporation as 
follows : — 

u The dutiful Address of the Mayor and Bur- 
gesses of Kingston-upon-Hull, to his Highness 
the Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of 
England, Scotland, and Ireland, and of all 
the Dominions thereunto belonging. 

" The only wise and wonder-working God, 



38 ANDREW MARVELL. 

having wrought in these nations of late, won- 
ders if not miracles, has kept us in the bush in 
the midst of the fire from being consumed, 
carried us through the sea as on dry land ; and 
through our murmurings and rebellions provoked 
God, after we thought that we had been deli- 
vered from Egypt, to bring us into a trouble- 
some wilderness; yet we hope that God is 
~ again giving us a sight of that good land : — as 
iwe are bound to desire, to tender up ourselves 
/ in all praise, unto this great and good God ; so 
K I we thankfully acknowledge, that as God made 
\J use of Moses, Joshua, Zerubabel, and others, 
in bringing his people out of Egypt and Baby- 
lon, so God has honoured your highness to be a 
glorious instrument, not only of wonderful vic- 
tories and a quiet settlement in a great measure 
by land, but also now when our waters are 
turned into blood, we hope you will be equally 
instrumental in procuring for us a safe, happy, 
and settled peace by sea. 

" And as this poor town, which God has 
made a refuge and a Zoar for many of his poor 
servants and saints, when all the northern parts 
were in a flame, preserved it wonderfully from 
treachery within, and dangers without, and 
made it instrumental in some measure for 
breaking the enemy, and safety of the public, 
has infinite cause to be thankful to our God ; so 
do we bless Him for the abundant favours 
vouchsafed to your highness, and to those 
nations and peoples through you. — We do 
humbly acknowledge our satisfaction in your 
highness's government over us, and our humble 
submission thereunto, assuring your highness 



ANDREW MARVELL. 39 

that it will be our daily prayer to Almighty 
God, that he will bestow upon your highness a 
Benjamin's portion of grace and wisdom, for 
the discharge of that great work which both 
God and we expect from you ; not doubting 
but that, upon our seasonable addresses, the 
beams of your highness's love will so far reflect 
upon this corporation, as that our ancient char- 
ters and immunities may not only be continued, 
but upon due consideration enlarged by your 
gracious favour, of which we have no cause to 
doubt or despair, seeing that since your accept- 
ance of the protection and government of the 
nations, your highnesses time has been taken up 
in seeking peace, and causing justice and law to 
be equally administered. 

" We already begin to experience the benefit 
of your wise and equable administration, by 
the near prospect we have of having the ports 
and havens, which have been long bound, and 
in a manner shut up, open again to the amity 
and traffic of and with our neighbours. We, 
therefore, hold ourselves bound by every tie of 
gratitude, humbly to acknowledge our thank- 
fulness to God, in whose guidings are the 
hearts of princes, that He has made you the 
ruler over us, and has given you the spirit and 
wisdom to go in and out before so great a 
people. In due consideration of all which, it 
shall be our constant resolution (in all fidelity, 
humility, and cheerfulness,) to submit our- 
selves to the government of your highness, as a 
person whom God has set over us, and do pro- 
mise always to answer your protection with 
loyalty and subjection. " 



40 ANDREW MARVELL. 

When Cromwell was dead, and Charles II. 
restored, the Mayor and Corporation prepared 
" a dutiful address," and presented it to the 
king. In this curious composition they said — 

" With what repugnancy and unspeakable 
sorrow they saw, (as the prologue to the late 
calamities of this nation) that sad and shame- 
ful spectacle, when his Majesty's royal father, 
of most glorious memory, and your royal self 
stood under their walls, and could not obtain 
admission ; and that it was with no less ex- 
treme of joy they did now run out with the 
rest of his Majesty's people, to congratulate his 
Majesty's happy return to his kingdoms, and 
to the full and peaceable exercise of his govern- 
ment. — That their former rudeness and inhu- 
manity, so fatal in its consequences, could never 
have happened in a town so loyal and obliged 
to its princes, had the inhabitants been their 
own garrison ; or had they not by an armed 
power been forced about, from that point of 
obedience to which their affections naturally 
tended. 

tc They would not, however," they added, 
"further revive those things which his majesty 
had, out of his abundant goodness, graciously 
pleased to forget, he having, by the example 
and last advice of his blessed father, drunk so 
deep of the river Lethe that he had thereby 
become invulnerable in every limb of his blessed 
person and authority." They blessed God, too, 
" that after so many afflictions, he had restored 
him to his people with such a mind, and, in 
his majesty's clemency, had given them an 
earnest of his own mercy, and that nothing 



ANDREW MARVELL. 41 

now could be expected but that this mutual 
love and confidence between his majesty and 
his people would be perpetual, seeing that they 
had suffered so much, one for the other, for so 
many years before they could come together, 
and close the unhappy breaches which had so 
long divided them. The happy effects of the 
change," they said, " were already diffused 
through the whole nation. That traffic, trade, 
love, honesty, humanity, and civility grew up 
and increased every day more and more amongst 
.them. Justice was promoted, vice and profane- 
ness discountenanced, magistracy and ministry 
encouraged, and those various insects procreated 
out of the corruption of religion kicked down 
into the nastiness from which they sprung ; 
that this was a work of so great importance, 
that God reserved it for himself, and would not 
communicate the honour of restoring his ma- 
jesty to any means less than his own, who had 
led, fed, and preserved him for twelve years." 

These two compositions stand in very re- 
markable contrast to each other. In addition 
to this dutiful address, the effigy of Cromwell 
was hung on a gallows, and then taken down, 
thrown into a tar-barrel, and burnt ; but it is 
especially singular that a town, so remarkable 
in the display of its loyalty, should elect for its 
member one of the secretaries of this very Crom- 
well, and that he should retain a place in their 
confidence for so many years. 

Probably the secret springs of his election 
are not known to us ; perhaps the burgesses of 
Hull were more independent than its alder- 
men. Certain it is, that the disgrace of having 



42 ANDREW MARVELL. 

been an inmate of the palace of the Protector 
was not sufficient to exclude him from the 
House of Commons, as the representative of 
Hull. This post has become now a remark- 
able one. It is probable that he was the last 
member who received pay from his constituents. 
Zealously he guarded their interests through 
the lengthy period of his membership. He 
maintained a constant correspondence with the 
leading persons, assuring them of his devotion 
to their interests, and sedulous attention to all 
the matters of state policy. At that time this i 
was most necessary, for newspapers were scarce, 
and not to be trusted. This chapter will be 
mostly composed of extracts from those letters 
to the corporation of Hull. They are worthy 
of being studied by modern members, as speci- 
mens of rigid watchfulness, and parliamentary 
courtesy. They also curiously illustrate the 
history of the time. 

The character of Marvell as a statesman is 
worthy of study. The house in which he sat 
was the most corrupt ever assembled to guide 
the destinies of England ; but he was quite 
uncontaminated — the highest principles ruled 
and shone forth in his whole career. 

The first Parliament before the Restoration 
met upon the 25th of April, 1660, in which 
Marvell gave an early attendance, though the 
first letter that appears to his constituents is in 
November following, wherein he laments the 
absence of his partner, Mr. John Ramsden, and 
tells them he " writes with but half a pen, 
which makes his account of public affairs so 
imperfect ; and yet he had rather expose his 



ANDREW MARVELL. 43 

own defects to their good interpretation, than 
excuse thereby a total neglect of his duty." — 
In the same letter he takes an opportunity to 
pay a pleasing compliment to the ladies of Hull, 
upon their conjugal virtue. 

Confiding in the organised valour of the 
English nation, and in the capacity of discip- 
line which exists in every people, he once and 
for ever opposed a standing army, a species of 
force which, had Charles the First possessed, 
he might have been as despotic as he would ; 
which Cromwell possessing, kept the realm at 
nurse for a Prince, who, with similar powers, 
would do and undo more than the worst of his 
legitimate or illegitimate predecessors. The 
purpose of the Puritans was to turn the whole 
blessed island into a Presbyterian Paradise, in 
which there was to be nothing but churches, 
and church-yards ; — one to be filled with the 
living bodies of the saints, and the other with 
the hanged carcases of their adversaries. The 
apostate Royalists of the Restoration would 
have made England a bear-garden, in which all 
vices w T ere free, and from which nothing but 
piety was exiled. Marvell had seen a standing 
army, composed of more respectable materials 
than could easily be replaced, the instrument 
of one tyranny ; and most wisely he opposed 
its continuance, when the same mass, compacted 
of baser atoms, might perpetuate a tyranny far 
worse than that which it succeeded. He con- 
ceived an army to be a giant body without a 
directing soul, — a house to let, in which the 
long-houseless demon of despotism might live 
at a nominal rent. — But hear what Marvell 



44 ANDREW MARVELL. 

said, nigh two hundred years ago : — " I doubt 
not, ere we rise, to see the whole army disbanded; 
and, according to the act, hope to see your town 
once more ungarrisoned, in which I should be 
glad and happy to be instrumental to the utter- 
most ; for I cannot but remember, though then 
a child, those blessed days, when the youth of 
our own town were trained for the militia, and 
did, methought, become their arms much better 
than any soldiers that I have seen since." He 
saw with a clear and discerning eye, the mis- 
chief of that many-headed monster, the Excise; 
for when the proposition was started for a 
longer continuance of that bill, he prophetically 
added, u I wish it prove not too long.'" 

In glancing over the position of Marvell in 
the Commons, we cannot fail to notice the 
striking contrast of his character to that of 
most men who have legislated in England. It 
has been the curse of England to be governed 
by corrupt statesmen ; indeed corrupt citizens 
are only capable of producing corrupt states- 
men ; far back into the most hoary and distant 
ages we find corrupt ministers the ruling powers, 
— Laussane under William the Conqueror ; 
Becket under Henry II., Suffolk under Ed- 
ward I., De Spencers under Edward II., and 
Warwick under or over all the princes of his 
time. Wolsey attained his lofty chair of 
power by corruption ; corruption was the great 
blot upon the Somersets, the Northumberlands, 
and the Suffolks of the time of Edward VI. ; 
and the throne of Elizabeth was girt by men 
uncompromising only in their tergiversation. 
Walsingham was steeped in it ; Cecil was not 



ANDREW MARVELL. 45 

unstained by it. But shall it be said of the 
whole line of the Stuarts, — if ever corruption 
reached its height, it was beneath their rule ; 
every monarch revelled in it ; the taste and 
moral character of that ill-fated race led them 
to choose the corrupt in preference to the can- 
did ; all the kings of that line loved a dark 
and hidden policy ; they preferred the tortuous 
line of bribery ; not one of the kings could love 
or accept an immaculate or pure-minded ad- 
viser, — until at last in the age of Charles II. 
we find the throne and the cabinet surrounded 
and filled by men, specimens certainly of hu- 
manity in the last extreme of its degradation. 
In the age of Marvell it was pre-eminently 
the fashion to believe that every man had his 
price. — A curious study is furnished by the 
portraits of those statesmen — those handsome 
sinners — those fashionable hypocrites — those 
men with the smooth brow and the false heart, 
— plotting and counter-plotting against each 
other; it is a melancholy picture wherever we 
turn the eye ; Chesterfields and Churchills, 
Clarendons and Hali faxes, — these and the men 
of a later period all belonged to the same great 
age of poltroonery, cowardice, trickery, char- 
latanism, — and, in a w T ord, corruption, from the 
king on the throne down through the cabinet 
and privy councils, the upper and lower House. 
The kingdom was governed by pimps and ad- 
venturers — licentious men, who believed that 
honour and virtue never had existence, and in 
their own persons ignored their existence alto- 
gether — who gave themselves wholly over to 
the most disgusting and degrading vices, and 



46 ANDREW MA11VELL, 

used their power only as so many means to the 
pandering to their vices ; if ever the shadow of 
virtue crossed their path, they were prepared to 
pay a large sum to make it theirs — to buy it 
over to the purposes of vice. Sometimes, in- 
deed, they found themselves defeated, and were 
compelled to admit that virtue had some real 
existence, and such as we shall see in the 
instance of the noble subject of our memoir. 

We cannot find, however, by any writings, 
that he ever spoke in Parliament : the journals 
of that time make no mention of such speeches ; 
but by his own account, he always took notes of 
what passed ; and by his indefatigable conduct 
otherwise, he obtained a great ascendancy over 
the minds of the members. He preserved the 
respect of the Court, even when he was most 
determined in his hostility to its measures. The 
good sense of Prince Rupert was conspicuous 
in making him his friend ; for when Marvell's 
name became the hatred of the Court party, and 
it was dangerous for him to appear abroad. 
Prince Rupert would go privately to his lodg- 
ings ; so that, whenever his Royal Highness 
voted on the side of Marvell, which he often 
did, it was the observation of the adverse fac- 
tion, u that he had been with his tutor" 

The severe tracts which he was frequently 
publishing against the profligate Court, and the 
inflammatory literary fight which he had with 
Parker and others, often made his life in dan- 
ger ; but no bribes, no offers of situation, could 
make him swerve from the virtuous path in which 
he continued to walk invariably to the last.— 
A man of such excellent parts, and facetious 



ANDREW MARVELL. 47 

converse, as Marvell, could not be unknown to 
Charles II., who loved the company of wits so 
much, that he would suffer the severest jokes, 
even upon himself, rather than not enjoy them. 
Marvell having been once honoured with an 
evenings entertainment by his majesty, the 
latter was so charmed with the ease of his man- 
ners, the soundness of his judgment, and the 
keenness of his wit, that the following morning, 
to show him his regard, he sent the Lord 
Treasurer Danby to wait upon him with a par- 
ticular message. His lordship, with some diffi- 
culty, found Marvell's elevated retreat, on the 
second floor, in a court near the Strand. Lord 
Danby, from the darkness of the staircase, 
and its narrowness, abruptly burst open the 
door, and suddenly entered the room, in which 
he found Marvell writing. Astonished at the 
sight of so noble and unexpected a visitor, 
Marvell asked his lordship, with a smile, if he 
had not mistaken his way. " No/' he replied, 
with a bow, "not since I have found Mr. 
Marvell ;" continuing, that he came with a 
message from the king, who wished to do him 
some signal service, on account of the high opi- 
nion his majesty had of his merits. Marvell 
replied, with his usual pleasantry, that his 
majesty had it not in his power to serve him. 
But becoming more serious, he told the lord 
treasurer, that he knew the nature of courts 
well ; he had been in many ; that whoever is 
distinguished by a prince's favours is expected 
to vote in his interest. The Lord Danby told 
him his majesty only desired to know 
whether there was any place at court he 



48 ANDREW MARVELL. 

would accept, He told the lord treasurer he 
could not accept anything with honour, for he 
must be either ungrateful to the king in voting 
against him, or false to his country in giving in 
to the measures of the court ; therefore the only 
favour he begged of his majesty was, that he 
would esteem him as dutiful a subject as any 
he had, and more in his proper interest, in re- 
fusing his offers, than if he had accepted them. 
The Lord Danby, finding that no arguments 
could prevail, told Marvell that the king re- 
quested his acceptance of i?l,000, till he could 
think what further he could do for him. 

This anecdote has been somewhat differently 
related in a pamphlet printed in Ireland about 
the year 1754, from whence we shall extract 
it : — " The borough of Hull, in the reign of 
Charles II., chose Andrew Marvell, a young 
gentleman of little or no fortune, and main- 
tained him in London for the service of the 
public. His understanding, integrity, and 
spirit were dreadful to the then infamous ad- 
ministration. Persuaded that he would be 
theirs for properly asking, they sent his old 
school-fellow, the Lord Treasurer Danby, to 
renew acquaintance with him in his garret. 
At parting, the Lord Treasurer, out of pure 
affection, slipped into his hand an order upon 
the treasury for i?1000, and then went to his 
chariot. Marvell, looking at the paper, calls 
after the treasurer, ; My lord, I request another 
moment/ They went up again to the garret, 
and Jack, the servant boy, was called. ' Jack, 
child, what had I for dinner yesterday ? c Don't 
you remember, sir? you had the little shoulder 



ANDREW MARVELL. 49 

of mutton that you ordered me to bring from a 
woman in the market.' c Very right child. 
What have I for dinner to-day V /Don't you 
know, sir, that you bade me lay by the blade- 
bone to broil V ' 'Tis so ; very right, child, go 
away. My lord, do you hear that ? Andrew 
Marvell's dinner is provided ; there's your piece 
of paper. I want it not. • I knew the sort of 
kindness you intended. I live here to serve 
my constituents. The ministry may seek men 
for their purpose ; 1" am not one? " 

No Roman virtue ever surpassed this ; nor 
can gold bribe a mind that is not debauched 
with luxury ; and with Dr. Samuel Johnson, 
we repeat, " No man, whose appetites are his 
masters, can perform the duties of his nature 
with strictness and regularity. He that would 
be superior to external influences, must first 
become superior to his own passions. When 
the Roman general, sitting at supper with a 
plate of turnips before him, was solicited by 
large promises to betray his trust, he asked the 
messengers whether he, that could sup on tur- 
nips, was a man likely to sell his country ? 
Upon him who has reduced his senses to obe- 
dience, temptation has lost its power ; he is able 
to attend impartially to virtue, and execute her 
commands without hesitation.^ 

And yet we would fain hope that although 
this anecdote may be recorded with so much 
applause, that it is not so rare and uncommon 
a thing to be incorruptible. Dark as human 
nature is, it is better than many have supposed. 
Those who have regarded it with most abhor- 
rence have perhaps usually sketched it from 



50 ANDREW MARVELL. 

themselves. In humblest life we would hope 
it is no unusual thing to find men braving all 
from a love and reverence of principle. There 
is nothing in this above human nature ; and 
England expects every man to be a Marvell at 
least. And are there not many such labourers, 
lowly artizans and mechanics, who, in their de- 
gree, have achieved as much as the pure-minded 
member for Hull — have put by the bribe as a 
most horrible thing — have shrunk from the 
stain upon their ci.vic and social integrity ? And 
this, in the affairs of legislation, is what is pre- 
eminently needed— high-minded citizenship — 
a soul above purchase money. We say we be- 
lieve that England has many such men as Mar- 
vell, but that it is mournful that there are 
thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of 
men in the country who are willing by any 
means to enrich themselves, to gratify their 
passions, to obtain their whims, and to sell 
their country and their birthright. Certainly, 
in the life of Marvell there is no more than we 
might expect would be the conduct of every 
citizen ; and doubtless many a noble instance 
lies unrecorded, blotted altogether out of the 
memory or the knowledge of man. But the 
very fact that we preserve such instances, and 
think of them at all, is a deplorable proof 
that they are strange and unusual things to us. 
In a purer state of society we should not chro- 
nicle it as extraordinary that such a man was 
really and indisputably honest. 

Yes, we really think that it is one of the 
most melancholy proofs of our degradation that 
human virtue should be so memorable to us, 



ANDREW MARVELL. 51 

that we should have to rear monuments to the 
memory of honest men ; that we should need 
to recollect virtue, even of an humble order, 
Our scale of magnanimity is very low — our 
•ideal standard of greatness is by no means out 
of sight, when such attainable virtues rivet our 
attention and our homage. No wonder that 
martyrs have been counted madmen, and heroes 
fools. If virtue and goodness were more natural 
to us, it would not be so. We should seo 
nothing extraordinary in the doing justly ; to 
fulfil its conditions would be as natural as to 
eat, or to go about the daily ordinances of life. 
The great missionary pierces the deserts of 
burning sand, or the thick jungle of tropical 
wildernesses, or scales the depths of polar ices 
and snows, armed only with the desire to 
brighten the condition of humanity ; but these 
are not the things which are admired here ; 
only the ordinary doings of a good man's life ; 
they should come to him without an effort, 
they should excite no surprise ; they should 
no more be bought, chaffered, and paid for 
than the kisses of a child ; there should be a 
spirit of holy innocence above all those vile 
means by which the ungodly rise to their 
coveted power. Truly, a good man is ever 
innocent, and his ideas will never know evil 
i&itil it is presented to him, and certainly will 
not step out of his way to encounter and suc- 
cour it. 

To any person desirous of becoming ac- 
quainted with those times, and especially with 
the Parliamentary and National History, Mar- 
veil's correspondence with his constituents of 



52 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Hull is most important, especially if we Lave 
looked at all at the outline of the history as 
more popularly communicated ; we have in 
these letters the notes and observations of a 
man who was observing upon the very platform.* 
That Parliament in which Marvell sat is in 
some degree known to the reader ; he may 
study it in the clear pages of Mackintosh, or in 
the graphic descriptions of Macaulay. Never 
was a House so corrupt, so servile to the will 
of the monarch. The letters of Marvell do 
not contain his opinions, they are merely the 
record of events; occasionally we note the faint 
reflection of a covert sneer, — now and then, an 
indignant burst of feeling, but very seldom ; he 
simply wrote to apprise the town he repre- 
sented, and in whose interests he was so evi- 
dently interested, of the state of affairs ; he is 
particular to inform his correspondent of all 
matters touching proposed taxation, — of all 
affairs in which the conscience of the subject 
was likely to be invaded. He gives hints and 
sketches of the king, most life-like, and yet the 
wisest cavalier could not convict him of libel, 
or treason, or sectarianism, or republicanism. 
His design appears simply to be to do his duty 
to his town and his constituents. We do not 
indeed even gather how he voted on matters of 
so much interest. We can only surmise from 
his own account, that his vote was ever on the 
side of justice and freedom of conscience and 
trade. 

Marvell might be well styled the Model 
Member : he lived entirely for his duties in 
the House ; his profession was evidently a 



ANDREW M All V ELL. 53 

Member of the Senate, and every other duty of 
a public or official character yielded to it ; he 
was indeed elected to serve, as we shall see, as 
Secretary on two embassies, but he did not 
•leave without tbe especial permission of the 
borough and the burgesses. " Gentlemen,'' he 
says, alluding to some misunderstanding be- 
tween himself and fellow member, Colonel 
Gilby, " though perhaps we may differ in our 
advice concerning the way of proceeding, yet 
we have the same good ends in general ; and 
by this unlucky falling out, we shall be pro- 
voked to a greater emulation of serving you. I 
must beg you to pardon me for writing singly 
to you, for if I wanted my right hand, yet I 
would scribble to you with my left, rather than 
neglect your business. In the meantime, I 
beseech you to pardon my weakness ; for there 
are some things which men ought not, others 
that they cannot patiently suffer/' This cir- 
cumstance, with others, seems deeply to have 
afflicted him, for he says in another letter, " I 
am something bound up, that I cannot write 
about your affairs as I used to do ; but I assure 
you they break my sleep." 

In our ignorance we will confess, that it has 
sometimes appeared strange to us, that there 
should be so earnest a desire on the part of cer- 
tain gentlemen to sit in Parliament; to us it 
has appeared as the most thankless and grace- 
less of offices. The honour is as empty and 
insignificant as any honour can ever be — the 
place of power and importance in the House is 
reserved for a few members ; the personality of 
the individual is surrendered up to the groans, 



54 ANDREW MARVELL. 

or perhaps, the still more odious and disgusting, 
cheers of a drunken, bigotted,and unenlightened 
mob ; few even of the most intelligent and 
respectable of the constituents believe in the 
conscientiousness of the member. Of all* 
offices this is the most unremunerated ; if 
duties are attended to, a tax is levied on the 
most important portions of time — the long 
afternoon, morning, and night are most fre- 
quently wasted in listening to discussions which 
would disgrace often an assembly of school- 
boys ; even in the height of the most important 
debates, the tedium is seldom relieved by ora* 
tory, and in few parliaments can anything new 
be gleaned either in fact, or illustration, or argu- 
ment : if the member is himself a man of re- 
fined and courteous habits, he will frequently 
reflect that he has the honour of sitting in the 
company of the worst bred men in the empire, 
— Hudsons, Sibthorps, Ferrands ; the life of a 
member, if a gentleman, may be described as 
an immensely wasted life ; in no profession 
could he spend so much time to so little pur- 
pose ; thanks are seldom awarded him for all 
his labours or study for the weal of his borough, 
county, or country ; or should such tKanks be 
awarded him. The thought must press upon 
him, that he might have served city, county, or 
country better by an attendance upon a more 
humble round of duties; his influence has been 
mostly unfelt and uncared for. The necessity 
for exacting from members a rigid attendance 
upon their duties has never, or but seldom, 
been felt. A member of the House has been 
regarded as one of the most idle of all pro- 



ANDREW MARVELL. 55 

fessions, and it has mostly, in all ages of our 
country's history, excepting the brief period of 
the Revolution, been so regarded ; and yet 
who can doubt that if the country can boast of 
' important offices, the office of Legislator and 
Statesman is surely important. It is astonish- 
ing, when we consider the character of the men 
who have, from time to time, sat as members, 
that the country has so long held its place 
among the nations; had there been more sense, 
honour, justice, or religion, than has been found 
there the country must infallibly have been lost. 
But the mind outside has ever been superior to 
the mind inside of the House ; yet what more 
natural than that a man, deliberately chosen to 
make and unmake the national laws, should 
give sedulous attention to every affair of state, 
— should consult constantly his constituents' 
wishes, with reference to every affair of im- 
portance, and should, in all things, rather 
represent their opinion than his own ; should 
not absent himself weeks or months from the 
chambers of legislation, without special per- 
mission, and on all occasions should seek to pro- 
mote that kindly feeling and good will among 
the various parties of his borough, which would 
surely be best promoted by a vigilant watch 
maintained over all their interests. — This is 
the department of Marvell. 

From June, 1661, we have a long vacancy 
in Marvell's correspondence. It appears that 
he was at this time in Holland, and did not show 
any intention of returning, till Lord Bellasis* 

* Lord Bellasis was then High Steward of Hull, and 
Deputy-Governor under the Duke of Monmouth. 



56 ANDREW MARVELL. 

requested the town of Hull to proceed to 
the election of a new member, in case of their 
burgess not appearing in his seat in the House 
of Commons. The corporation thanked his 
lordship, and informed him that they had had 
two letters from Marvel], who was not far off, 
and would be ready at their call. They there- 
fore wrote to him, stating if he did not return, 
they would be compelled to embrace the ex- 
pedient proposed by his lordship. This sum- 
mons brought Marvell to England, as we find 
by his letter, dated 

"Frankfort, March 12, 1663. 
u Gentlemen, 
" Had mine own thoughts not been strong enough to 
persuade me to slight concernments of mine, in respect to 
the public, and your service, your prudent and courteous 
letter of the 3d of February would have brought me over, 
though I had been at a greater distance. This is only to 
assure you that I am making all the speed possible back, 
and that, with God's assistance, in a very short time you 
may expect to hear of me at the Parliament House \ in the 
mean time, 

" I remain, 

" Gentlemen, 
" Your most affectionate friend to serve you, 

" Andrew Marvell." 

It appears that Marvell soon after arrived in 
England to attend his duty in Parliament. In 
his letter he alludes to the request of Lord Bel- 
lasis to the town of Hull, that they should pro- 
ceed to elect another burgess, on account of his 
absence. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 57 

"Westminster, April, 2, 1663. 
" Gentlemen, 

" Being newly arrived in town, and full of business, yet 
I could not neglect to give you notice that this day 1 have 
been in the House, and found ray place empty, though it 
seems that some persons would have been so courteous as 
to have filled it for me. You may be assured that as my 
obligation and affection to your service hath been strong 
enough to draw me over, without any consideration of 
mine own private concernments, so I shall now maintain 
my station with the same vigour and alacrity in your 
business which I have always testify'd formerly, and which 
is no more than is due to that kindnesse which I have con- 
stantly experienced from you. So at present, though in 
much haste, saluting you with all my most hearty respects, 
" I remain, 

" Gentlemen, 
" Your most affectionate friend to serve, 

" Andrew Marvell/' 

Marvell does not seem settled this session, 
and reasons with his friends, that the vigilance 
and sufficiency of his partner might have ex- 
cused his absence. Three months were scarcely 
elapsed before we find him stating his intention 
to his constituents of going beyond sea with 
Lord Carlisle, who was appointed Ambassador 
Extraordinary to Russia, Sweden, and Den- 
mark. By accepting this appointment, Mar- 
vell did not then appear to be much at variance 
with government, though, by the manner of 
expressing himself, he seems, in a great mea- 
sure, to have been influenced by a friendship 
for Lord Carlisle. 
d 2 



58 ANJjEEW MARTELL. 

"London, June, 16, 1663. 
" Gentlemen, 
The relation I have to your affairs, and the intimacy of 
that affection I owe you, do both incline and oblige me to 
communicate to you, that there is a probability I may very 
shortly have occasion to go beyond sea ; for my Lord Car- 
lisle being chosen by his Majesty Ambassador Extraor- 
dinary to Muscovy, Sweden, and Denmark, hath used his 
power, which ought to be very great with me, to make me 
goe along with him, as Secretary in these embassages. It 
is no new thing for members of the House to be dispensed 
with, for the service of the King and the nation, in foreign 
parts. And you may be sure I will not stirre without 
speciall leave of the House, so that you may be freed from 
any possibility of being importuned, or tempted, to make 
any other choice in my absence. However, I cannot but 
advise with you, desiring also to take your assent along 
with me, so much esteeme I have both of your prudence 
and friendship. The time allotted for the embassy is not 
much above a year, probably may not be much lesse than 
betwixt our adjournment and next meeting; however, you 
have Col. Gilby, to whom my presence can make little ad- 
dition, so that I cannot decline this voyage. I shall have 
the comfort to believe that, all things considered, you can- 
not thereby receive any disservice. I shall hope herein to 
receive your speedy answer. 

" I remain, Gentlemen, &c, 
" Your most affectionate friend to serve you, 

- •' Andrew Marvell." 

Before leaving England he again writes — 

" London, July 20, 1663. 
" Gentlemen, 
" Being this day taking barge for Gravesend, there to 



ANDREW MARVELL. 59 

embark for Archangel, thence to Sweden, and last of all to 
Denmark, all of which I hope, by God's blessing, to finish 
within twelve months time, I do hereby, with my last and 
most serious thoughts, salute you, rendering you all hearty 
thanks for your great kindness and friendship to me upon 
all occasions, and ardently beseeching God to keep you all 
in his gracious protection, to your own honour, and the 
welfare and flourishing of your Corporation, to which I 
am, and shall ever continue, a most affectionate and de- 
voted servant. I undertake this voyage with the order 
and good liking of his Majesty, and by leave given me from 
the House, and entered in the journal; and having received, 
moreover, your approbation, I go, therefore, with more 
ease and satisfaction of mind, and augurate to myself the 
happier success in all my proceedings. Your known pru- 
dence makes it unnecessary for me to leave my advice or 
counsell with you at parting ; yet can I not forbear, out of 
the superabundance of my care and affection for you, to 
recommend to you a correspondence with the garrison, so 
long as his Majesty shall think fit to continue it ; unto 
which, and all your other concerns, as Col. Gilbt hath 
been, and will be, always mainly instrumental, and do you 
all the right imaginable, so could I wish, as I do not doubt 
that you would, upon any past or future occasion, confide 
much in his discretion, which he will never deny you the 
use of. This I say to you with a very good intent, and I 
know will be no otherwise understood by you. And so 
renewing and redoubling my most cordial thanks, my most 
earnest prayers, and my most true love and service, to and 
for you all, I remain, as long as I live, 
" Gentlemen, 
w Your most affectionate friend to serve you, 

" Andrew Marvell." 

This embassy continued nearly two years. 



60 ANDREW MARVELL. 

after which we find Marvell attending the par- 
liament, at Oxford, in 1665. He then began 
to correspond with his constituents almost every 
post, which is said to be last instance of that 
valuable relation between representatives and 
electors. 

October 22, 1665 : — " Our bill against the importation 
of Irish, cattle was not passed by his Majesty, as being too 
destructive to the Irish interest." 



But it appears the bill did afterwards pass, 
for he writes : — 



" Our House has returned the bill about Irish cattle 
to the Lords, adhering to the word nuisance, which the 
Lords changed to detriment and mischief ; but at a con- 
ference, we delivered the reasons of our adhering to the 
word nuisance, which was agreed to." 

^November 2 : — " The bill for preventing the increase of 
the Plague could not pass, because the Lords would not 
agree with us, that their houses, if infected, should be 
shut up." 

In November, 1666 :— " Since my last we have, in a 
manner, being wholly taken up with instructions for the 
Poll Bill. The chief of which the House voted were, be- 
sides that of twelve pence on every head, and double on 
aliens, and nonconformists, twenty shillings in the £100 
for personal estates, three shillings in the pound for all 
offices and public employments, except military ; lawyers 
and physicians, proportionable to their practice. There is 
one bill ordered to be brought in of a new nature ; — that 
all persons shall be buried in woollen for the next six or 
geyen years, The reason propounded is ; because a matter 



ANDREW MARVELL. 61 

of £100,000 a year of our own manufacture vail be em- 
ployed, and so much money kept at home from buying 
foreign linen, till our trade of flax, &c. be grown up." 

January 12, 1667 : — "We have not advanced much this 
week ; the alterations of the Lords upon the Poll Bill 
have kept us busy. We have disagreed in most : Aliens, 
we adhere to pay double ; Nonconformists, we agree with 
the Lords, shall not pay double : carried by 126 to 91." 

" To-day his Majesty writ to us, to quicken us, and that 
we should conclude his business without any recesses. 
Thereupon our House called all the defaulters, and the 
Sergeant at Arms to send for them, and they not to sit till 
they have paid their fees." 

A few days afterwards he thus writes : — 

" To-day the Duke of Buckingham and the Marquesse of 
Dorchester were, upon their petitions, freed from the 
Tower, haviug been committed for quarrelling, and scuffling 
the other day, when we were at the Canary conference." 

Janury 26 : — " At eleven o'clock we went up to the 
Lords, to manage the impeachment against Lord Mordant. 
Our managers observed that he sat in the House, and that 
he had counsell, whereas he ought to stand at the bar as 
s, criminal, and to have no counsell to plead or manage 
his cause." 

Marvell's, attention to the business of Parlia- 
ment, and in writing to his constituents, appears 
to have been excessive, for we find from a letter, 
dated November 14, 1667, in which he says : — 

" Really the business of the House hath been of late so 
earnest, daily, and so long, that I have not had the time, 
and scarce the vigour, left me by night to write to you ; 



62 ANDREW MARVELL. 

and today, because I would not omit any longer, / lose my 
dinner to make sure of this letter. The Earl of Clarendon 
hath taken up much of our time, till within these three 
days : but since his impeachment hath been carried up to 
the House of Lords, we have some leisure from that 
business.'* 

December 3rd : — " Since my last to you we have had a 
free conference with the Lords, for not committing the 
Earl of Clarendon upon our general charge. The Lords 
yesterday sent s, message by Judge Archer, and Judge 
Morton, that they were not satisfyed to commit him, with- 
out particular cause specifyed ; whereupon our House 
voted that the Lords, not complying with the desire of the 
House of Commons, upon the impeachment carried up 
against him, is an obstruction to public justice in the pro- 
ceedings of both Houses of Parliament, and is the precedent 
of evill and dangerous consequences. To-day the Lords 
sent down by Judge Twisden, and Judge Brown, another 
message to us, that they had received a large petition from 
the Earl of Clarendon, intimating that he was withdrawn. 
Hereupon our House forthwith ordered addresses to his 
Majesty, that care might be taken for securing all the Sea- 
ports lest he should pas3 there. I suppose he will not 
trouble you at Hull,'* 

January 15, 1666-7 :— u To-day was spent in a debate, by 
reason of the dearness of coals, to address the king for 
convenient convoy, and to desire that 4, 6, and 8 men 
might in coal ships, of 1, 2, and 300 tons be protected 
still from pressing, from 1st September to 1st of April : 
resolved in the affirmative upon division of 69 against 47» 

March 17, 1668 :— "To-day the House, before a Com- 
mittee of the whole House, sat and voted that towards the 
king's supply of £300,000, they will raise at least £100,000 
upon wines and strong waters" 



ANDREW MARVELL* 63 

Respecting the king sitting in person during 
debates in the House of Lords, Marvell thus 
writes, March 26, J 670:— 

44 His majesty hath for this whole week come every day in 
person to the House of Lords, and sat there during their 
debates and resolutions. And yesterday the Lords went 
in a body to Whitehall, to give him thanks for the honour 
he did them." 

To William Eamsden, Esq., a few days 
after, he states the particulars of the king's 
visit more fully. 

" The king about ten o'clock took boat with Lauderdale 
only, and two ordinary attendants, and rowed awhile as 
towards the bridge, but soon turned back to the Parliament 
stairs, and so went up into the House of Lords, and took 
his sea*-. All of them were amazed, but the Duke 
of York especially. After the king was seated, his 
majesty told them it was a privilege he claimed from his 
ancestors, to be present at their deliberations. After three 
or four days' continuance, the lords were well used to 
the king's presence, and sent the lord steward, and lord 
chamberlain, to enquire when they might render him their 
humble thanks for the honour he did them. The hour 
was appointed, and they thanked his majesty, who took it 
well. The king has ever since continued his session among 
them, and says, ' it is better than going to a play' " 

And in the same letter Marvell adds, — 

H There is some talk of a French queen to be invented 
for our king. Some say a sister of the King of Denmark ; 
others, a good virtuous Protestant here at home. The 
king disavows it, yet he has sayed in public, he knew not 



64 ANDREW MARVELL. 

why a woman may not be divorced for barrenness, as a 
man for impotency." 

April 9 : — Sir John Pritiman, who serves for Leicester, 
was yesterday suspended from sitting in the House, and 
from all privilege, till he find out one Hume, (a most noto- 
rious fellow) whom he suggested to be his menial servant ; 
whereas he was a prisoner for debt, and thus, by Sir John's 
procurement, has escaped his creditors* The sergeant was 
sent into the speaker's chamber with the mace, to bring 
Sir John, to receive the sentence upon his hiees, at the 
barre. Hereupon the House was disappointed ; for in the 
mean while he was escaped by the bach doore ; it was then 
ordered that that doore be nailed up for the future." 

Also of a similar escape lie thus writes :— 

" Sir James Norfolk, Sergeant of the House of Com- 
mons, was by them voted to be sent to the Tower ; and 
that his majesty be desired to cause a new sergeant to 
attend, he having betrayed his trust, &c, but Sir James 
forthwith escaped from the House while they were penning 
the order." 

Makch 10, 1689-70 :— "The House divided; whether 
first they should not read the bill of Conventicle ingrost, 
and 'twas agreed to read it first by 118 against 101. The 
Bill was read importing, That the Act of 35 of Eliz. is still 
in force, and for further remedy, because seditious sectuarys, 
under pretence of tender consciences, do contrive instruc- 
tions at their meetings, that from the 3d of April next if 
any person of 16 years, or upward, shall be present at any 
meeting, under pretence of religion, in other manner than 
allowed by Liturgy and practice of the Church of England, 
at which meeting there shall be five persons, or more than 
those of the household, or if in an house, field or place 
where no family inhabits, then where any five persons, o? 



ANDREW MARVELL. 65 

more are assembled, any one, or more justices of the county, 
liberty or division, or the chief magistrate of the place are 
enjoyned either by confession of the party, or oath of 
witnesses, or by notorious evidence, or circumstance, or in 
default of evidence, unlesse the offender can by two wit- 
nesses upon oath prove that he came upon other lawfull 
businesse, to make a record of such offence under his or 
their hands and seals, and this record shall be in law a full 
and perfect conviction, and thereupon he or they shall fine 
the person five shillings, which conviction to be certifyed 
at next quarter sessions : the next offence as before, but the 
fine ten shillings, or (as I remember at the justices discre- 
tion a months imprisonment) and so oft as he offends ; 
fines to be levyed by distresse and sale, or in case of his 
poverty, then upon the goods and chattells of any other 
person convicted of the same conventicle : constables, 
headboroughs, tithingmen, churchwardens, overseers of 
the pdore required to levy the fines by warrant, under 
justice's hand or chief magistrates, one moity to the justice 
for the poore of the parish, other moity to such persons or, 
person as the justice, &c. shall appoint, having regard to 
the persons industry in discovering, dispersing and punish- 
ing of the said Conventiclers : every one that preaches 
there, being convicted in the way before, to be fined for 
the first 501. but if a stranger, or fled, or poore, it shall be 
leveyed on the goods of any one or more persons that 
were there, and distributed as before ; and upon second 
preaching 1001. and leveyed in same manner, &c. upon one 
or more, if he be a stranger, or, &c, whoever wittingly 
and willingly suffers such meeting in his house, barn, 
woods, or grounds, 501. and if he be poore, then one or 
more as before : justice or chief magistrate, and also con- 
stables, &c. by their warrant may and shall enter, break 
open any house or place where they are informed such 
Conventicle is, and may take into custody j lieutenant & 



66 ANDREW MARVELL. 

or any commissioned officers of the militia, or other of 
his majesty forces, with troops or company es ; also sherifFe 
and other magistrates or ministers of justice, under certi- 
ficate of any justice required to repaire to the place, and 
disperse the Conventicle, and take into custody constable, 
&c. who knowing shall not informe a justice, fined five 
pounds ; justice that wittingly omits his duty in this Act 
fined 1001., one moity to his Majesty, the other to the in- 
former. If any one be sued for executing this Act, he may 
plead generall issue, and give the speciall matter in evi- 
dence ; and if the plaintiffe be nonsuited, or verdict passe 
for the defendant, the defendant shall have treble costs ; 
this Act, and all its clauses, to be construed most largely 
and beneficially for the justification of all that executes it, 
and no record, warrant, or mittimus made by virtue of 
this Act, nor any proceedings thereupon, shall be reversed 
or avoyded by reason of any default in forme, or other 
defect whatsoever. If any offender inhabit in, or fly to 
another country, the justice of peace where the offence, 
was'may certify to a justice there, and this last may levy 
the fines ; none punisht unlesse prosecuted within three 
months after the offence ; none punisht by this Act shall 
be punisht for the same offence by any other Act ; husbands 
pay the five and ten shillings for their wives ; all aldermen 
of London qualified to execute this Act as if justices, and 
finable 1001. if failing ; jaylor that gives liberty fined 101. 
This Act passed, upon division 138 against 78, and is sent 
up to the Lords. I have bin more particular to you herein 
that inconveniences might better, and in time be prevented 
and because this and the Mony Bill will be the principal! 
products of this session." 

December 8th : — " The bill for Conventicles hath been 
twice read, and committed ; it makes them henceforth 
BIOTS ; and orders that those who cannot pay five shil- 



ANDREW MARVELL. [67 

lings, or who refuse to tell their names, or abode, shall 
work it out in the House of Correction." 

December 20th : — {l The House, before rising to-day, 
ordered that the Sheriffs of countyes give notice that all 
members not present in the House on Monday come a fort 
night, should be rated double in the bill of Subsidy, so that 
it will concern them in the country to be up by that time, 
and if sooner, the better. One moved, that a frigate 
should be built out of the money, and she might be named 
the l sinner s frigate? " 

July 25th: — " The king sent us a message, that concerning 
the house, might be that he would have us to adjourn till 
Monday next, when his Majesty intends to come to signify 
his pleasure. The House, therefore, ordered that the 
members of the Privy Council of our House should go to 
the king to desire that, if there be a Peace his Majesty 
would be pleased to disband all new raised land forces. 
This past nemini contradicente, and then we adjourned till 
Monday. The Dutch has been fighting with us in the 
river, but I think with more damage to themselves, than 
to us. The Peace truly I think, is concluded. His 
Majesty will best tell us that news, as the best author. 
Yesternight a very dangerous fire happened at one o'clock, 
in Southwark, but blowing up the next house in good time, 
there were but twelve consumed, or ruined, besides the 
lives of some few persons. I cannot but advise you to 
have especial care in your town, of any such accidents, or 
what you may call it, for I am sorry we can see no clearer 
by so many lights." 

April 13, 1671 : — " The Lords and we have agreed on an 
addresse to his Majesty, that he wear no forain manufac- 
tures, and discountenance, whether man or woman, who 
shall wear them." 

By some accident we are unfortunately de- 



68 ANDREW MAKVELL. 

prived of Marvell's correspondence with his 
constituents for above three years. The Duke 
or Monmouth was at that time Governor of 
Hull, and the corporation appears to have de- 
sired Marvell to wait upon him, with a con- 
gratulatory letter, and a present of gold, both 
as a testimony of their duty and respect, and 
also as a honorary fee of his office. After exe- 
cuting this commission, he thus writes : 

"Westminster, October 20, 1674. 
" Gentlemen, 

" The Duke of Monmouth returned on Saturday from 
Newmarket. To-day I waited on him, and first presented 
him with your letter, which he read over very attentively, 
and then prayed me to assure you that he would, upon all 
occasions, be most ready to give you the marks of his affec- 
tion, and assist you in any affairs that you should recom- 
mend to him ; with other words of civility to the same 
purpose. I then delivered him the six broad pieces, telling 
him I was deputed to blush on your behalf e for the meanness 
of the present, &c. ; but he took me off, and said he thanked 
you for it, and accepted it as a token of your kindness. 
He had, before I came in, as I was told, considered what to 
do with the gold ; but that I by all means prevented the 
offer, or I had been in danger of being reimbursed with it. 
I received the bill which was sent me on Mr. Nelehorpe ; 
but the surplus of it exceeding much the expense I have 
been at on this occasion, I desire you to make use of it, 
and of me, upon any other opportunity, remaining, 
"Gentlemen, &c, 
" Your most affectionate and humble Servant, 

"Andrew Marvell." 

April IT, 1675 : — "The Commons have these two days 
been in a Committee concerning Religion* The occasion 



ANDREW MAltVELL. 69 

of which rose from the motion of a Member of the House 
concerning the growth of Popery, for giving ease to Pro- 
testant Dissenters, and other good things of the same 
tendency." 

Apeil 22 : — "A bill was read the first time, that any 
Member of Parliament, who shall hereafter accept any office 
after his election, there shall be a new writ issued to elect 
in his place; but if his Borough shall then, the second 
time, elect him,, it shall be lawful : upon the question, 
whether it should have a second reading, 88 carried it 
against 74." 

April 24 : — " The House of Commons having received 
a report from the Committee for drawing up the addresse 
concerning the Duke of Lauderdale; Dr. Burnett being ex- 
amined, whether he knew anything of bringing over an 
army into his Majesty's dominions, told them, that dis" 
coursing of the danger of rigorous proceedings against the 
Presbyterians in Scotland, while his Majesty was engaged in 
a war with Holland, the Duke said to him, he wished they 
would rebell ; and in pursuit of that discourse, said, he 
would then hire the Irish Papists to come over, and cut 
their throats ; but the Doctor replying, that sure he spoke 
in jest, the Duke answered, no ; he said he was in earnest, 
and therefore repeated the same words again. Further, 
that being asked, whether he knew anything of bringing 
the Scotch army into England ; the Doctor answered the 
Committee, he had acquainted them w T ith that of Ireland, 
because no secret, for the Duke also said the same to 
several others, and particularly to the Dutchesse of Hamilton; 
but if the Duke had said anything to him in confidence, he 
assured them he should not reveal it, but upon the utmost 
extremity." 

May 15 : — " The unhappy misunderstanding betwixt 
the two Houses increaseth. An ill accident hath come 
in : lor a servant of the Commons' House, having the 



70 ANDREW MAIiVELL. 

Speaker's warrant to seize Dr. Shirley, and finding him 
in the Lords' lobby, showed the warrant to the Lord 
Mohun, who carried it into the other House, where they 
Tcept it : the Commons sent to demand justice against the 
Lord, and the Lords answered, he had done his duty # : 
upon hearing this, our House voted this message of the 
Lords ud parliamentary. I dare write no more, lest the 
post leave me behind." 

May 27 : — " The House of Commons was taken up for 
the most part yesterday in calling over their House, and 
have ordered a letter to be drawn up from the Speaker, 
to every place for which there is a defaulter, to signify 
the absence of their member, and a solemn letter is accord- 
ingly preparing to be signed by the Speaker ; this is 
thought a sufficient punishment for any modest man, 
nevertheless, if they shall not come up hereupon, there is 
a further severity reserved." 

Oct. 21 : — " I crave leave to advertise you, that Mr. 
Cressett this afternoon discoursing with me, said he had 
received a letter from the Mayor and seven or eight of the 
Aldermen, giving him notice that you had received a 
letter from me of three sides, partly concerning Parlia- 
ment business, which makes me presume to advertise you, 
and though I object nothing to Mr. Cressett's fidelity and 
discretion, neither do I write any thing deliberately that I 
fear to have divulged ; yet seeing it possible in writing to 
assured friends, a man may give his pen some liberty, for 
the times are somewhat criticall ; beside that, I am natur- 
ally, and now more so by my age, inclined to keep my 
thoughts private, I desire that what I write down to you 
may not easily, or unnecessarily, return to a third hand 
at London; if in saying this I have used more freedom 
than the occasion requires, I beg your pardon." 

After he had received an answer to the above 
letter, he again writes : — 



ANDREW MARVELL. 71 

Nov. 4th : — e< And now, as to yours of the 26th, occa- 
sioned by my complaint of intelligence given hither of my 
letter, I must profess that whosoever did it hath very 
much obliged me, though I believe beyond his intention, 
seeing it hath thence happened that I have received so 
courteous and civil a letter from you, that it warms my 
very heart, and I shall keep it, as a mark of your honour 
always by me, amongst whatsoever thing3 I account most 
precious and estimable ; for it would be very hard for me 
to tell you at how high a rate I value all expressions of 
your kindness to me, or how sensibly I should regret the 
loss of it by any mistake that might chance on either side. 
I am very well satisfied by your letter, that it was none of 
you, but it seems there is some sentinell set upon both you 
and me, and to know it therefore is a sufficient caution ; 
the best of it is, that none of us, I believe, either do, say, 
or write, any thing but what we care not if it be made 
public, although we do not desire it." 

About this time, in a letter to a friend, 
Marvell observes, that 

" The Earl of Clare made a very bold and rational 
harangue, the king being present, against his Majesty's sit- 
ting among the Lords, contrary to former precedents 
during their debates, but he was not seconded."* 

* It is presumed that such a hearer, in the House of 
Lords, would not now have a vote of thanks tendered to 
him " for the honour he had done them." With respect to 
courts of justice, it is almost certain, that in early times 
our Kings, in person, often heard and determined civil 
causes. Edward I. frequently sat in the King's Bench : 
and in later years, James I. is said to have sat there, but 
was informed by his Judges that he could not deliver an 
opinion. Dr. Henry, in his excellent " History of Great 
Britain," informs us, that he found no instance of any of 
our Kings sitting in a court of justice, before Edward IV, 



72 ANDREW MARVELL. 

In the same letter we find the following pas- 
sage, from whence it appears to what a height 
corruption had arrived in the reign of Charles 
IL:— 

" The King having, upon pretence of the great prepara- 
tions of his neighbours, demanded £300,000 for his navy, 
(though in conclusion he hath not sent out any) and that 
the Parliament should pay his debts, which the ministers 
would never particularize to the House of Commons, our 
House gave several bills. You see how far things were 
stretched beyond reason, there being no satisfaction how 
these debts were contracted, and all men foreseeing that 
what was given would not be applied to discharge the 
debts, which I hear are at this day risen to four millions. 
Nevertheless, such was the number of the constant 
courtiers, increased by the apostate patriots, who were 
bought off for that turn, some at six, others at ten, one at 
fifteen thousand pounds, in money ; besides what offices, 
lands, and reversions, to others, that it is a mercy they 
gave not away the whole land and liberty of England. 
The Duke of Buckingham is again £140,000 in debt, and, 



who, in the second year of his reign, sat three days toge- 
ther in the Court of King's Bench ; but, as he was then a 
very young man, it is probable he was there merely for 
instruction. In' criminal cases, however, it would be a 
great absiirdity if the King personally sat in judgment ; 
because, in regard to these, he appears in another eapa* 
city, that of prosecutor. All offences are either against the 
''King's peace," or "his crown and dignity," though, in 
the eye of the law, his Majesty is always present in all his 
courts, he cannot personally distribute justice. It is the 
regal office, and not the royal person, that is always pre- 
sent in court ; and from this ubiquity it follows, that the 
King can never be nonsuit. For the same reason also, in 
legal proceedings, the King is said, not to appear by his 
attorney, as other men. 



ANDREW MAXELL. 73 

by this prorogation, his creditors have time to tear all his 
lands in pieces. The House of Commons has run almost 
to the end of their time, and are grown extremely charge- 
able to the King, and odious to the people. They have 
signed and sealed £10,000 a year more to the Duchess of 
Cleveland, who has likewise near £10,000 out of the excise 
of beer and ale; £5,000 a year out of the post-office ; and, 
they say, the reversion of all places in the customs : and, 
indeed, what not ? All promotions, spiritual and tempo- 
ral, pass under her cognizance." 

In November, 1675, Marvell again com- 
mences his correspondence with the Mayor and 
Corporation of Hull : he says : — 

" I am here in good health and vigour, ready to take 
that station in the House which I obtain by your favour, 
and have so many years continued ; and therefore desire 
that you will consider whether there be any thing that 
relates to the state of your town. I shall strive to pro- 
mote it to the best of my duty ; and in the more general 
affairs of the nation, shall maintain the same uncorrupt 
mind, and clear conscience, free from faction, or any self 
ends, which, by the grace of God, I have hitherto pre- 
served." 

^There are not many men at the present day 
who would obtain credit with their constitu- 
ents, were they to speak thus of themselves; 
but Marvell had for many years given such 
convincing proofs of the purity of his mind, 
that his words were an oracle to all who kn 
him. 

Upon the assembling of Parliament on Feb- 
ruary 15, 1677, he writes — 

" I think it befits me to acquaint you that this day the 
Parliament assembled, in obedience to his majesty, he 
E 



74 ANDREW MARVELL. 

being pleased, in a most gracious manner, to proffer, oti 
his part, all things that might tend to the libertyes of the 
subject, and the safety of the nation ; mentioning also his 
debts ; but most of all he recommended a good agreement 
between the two Houses, calling heaven and earth to wit- 
ness that nothing on his part should be wanting to make 
this a happy session." 

February, 17. — J{ Yesterday the House of Lords ordered 
the Earl of Salisbury and Lord Wharton to the Tower, 
during his Majesty's and their Houses pleasure. The Duke 
of Buckingham had retired before his sentence, but, ap- 
pearing the day afterwards, was also sent to the Tower. 
The warrant bears for their high contempt of the House, 
for they refused to ask pardon, as ordered. To-day I hear 
they are made close prisoners." 

March 3. — " Sir Harbottle Grimston, Master of the Rolls, 
moved for a bill to be brought in, to indemnify all countyes, 
cityes, and burrows, for the wages due to their members for 
the time past, which was introduced by him upon very 
good reason, both because of the poverty of many people 
not being able to supply so long an arreare, especially new 
taxes now coming upon them ; and also, because Sir John 
Shaw, the Recorder of Colchester, had sued the town for his 
ivages ; several other members also having, it seems, threa- 
tened their burrows to do the same, unless they shqyj^l 
chuse them upon another election to Parliament.* This? 



* It is said that Marvell was the last person in the coun- 
try that received wages from his constituents ; two shillings 
a-day being allowed for a burgess, and four shillings for a 
knight of the shire. This was thought so considerable a 
sum in ancient times, that there are many instances where 
boroughs petitioned to be excused from sending members 
to Parliament, representing that they were engaged in build- 
ing bridges, or other public works, and therefore unable 
to bear such an extraordinary expense. — Blackstone's Com- 
fnentarieSf vol. 1. 



ANDREW MAEVELL. 75 

day had been appointed for grievances ; but, being 
grown near two o'clock, and the day being, indeed, extra- 
ordinary cold, to which the breaking of one of the House win- 
dows contributed, it was put off till next Tuesday." - 

March 13, 167V. — "To-day was read the bill against 
transporting wool out of England or Scotland, into forain 
parts, and ordered a second reading. Then the bill for 
indemnifying countyes, cityes, and burrows from the Par- 
liament wages now due, until the first day of this session, 
was read the first time, and endured a long argument, in- 
somuch, that when the question was put for a second read- 
ing, a gentleman, who had disapproved of the bill, de- 
ceiving himself by the noise of the negative vote, required 
the division of the House ; but so considerable a number 
of the affirmatives went out for it, that all the rest in a 
manner followed after them, notwithstanding their own 
votes ; and there were scarce either tellers, or men to be 
told left behind, so that it will have a second reading/' 

March 17. — " I must beg your pardon for paper, pens, 
writing, and every thing ; for really I have, by ill chance, 
neither eat nor drank from yesterday at noon till six o'clock 
to-night, when the House rose ; and by good chance I have 
now met with Mr. Skyner, so that betwixt both, you may 
easily guesse I have but little time, and write but at ad- 
venture." 

April 12. — "We sit again to-morrow, being Good Friday, 
at two o'clock, and hope may rise by Saturday night." 

January, 29, 1678. — " It was ordered, that the House 
will, to-morrow in the afternoone, turn itself into a Com- 
mittee of the whole House, to consider of the interring of 
his late martyred Majesty." 

January 31. — " The House met yesterday at two o'clock . 
after sermon, sate in Committee of the whole House, and 
ordered that a bill be brought in for £70,000, for the 



76 ANDREW MARVELL. 

more decent interring of his late martyred Majesty, and 
raising a mowment for him." 

We have now followed Marvell through his 
regular correspondence with the Corporation of 
Hull for upwards of twenty years, and have 
selected a few passages for the purpose of eluci- 
dating his history, yet a very insufficient part 
to give an idea of the excellent matter contained 
in his letters, which possess considerable strength 
and clearness of style, though the expressions 
occasionally appear quaint. The orthography 
also of that period was overcharged with letters, 
as the present is, perhaps, too much divested of 
them. They, however, throw considerable 
light on the character of Marvel], and are of 
importance in showing the sense which so able 
a man, and so illustrious a patriot, entertained of 
the duty he owed his constituents, and of the 
relation he bore to them in Parliament. He 
expresses himself upon the several matters on 
which he writes, with that spirit and freedom 
which distinguished his character, and which 
drew upon him the notice of persons in power. 
Not content with discharging the duty his sta- 
tion required, he appears to have been an active 
friend to the town of Hull, in all affairs that 
concerned its interest. By this attention Mar- 
vell gained the affections of his constituents. 
He had no private views to gratify ; the wel- 
fare of Hull, and the love of his country, were 
all his study and pursuit. 

But it is impossible to give a full series of 
citations from MarvelFs very interesting journal, 
its pages are frequently most important in th§ 



ANDREW MARVELL. 77 

notices of the events of the times, and they 
were most interesting times, and have left their 
very visible imprint upon our own days. We 
have seen how constantly every thing in com- 
mon use was passing beneath the supervision of 
the customs ; the excise man was not then, so 
important a person as he has since become — 
it was a question whether the whole of the 
articles in use by the people, should be subject 
to the rule — the guaging rod of the revenue 
officer — standing armies too, we have seen were 
not then a settled imposition upon the realm — 
the course of public Justice was more obstructed 
and obscure— the term Religious liberty, was a 
misnomer — the thing was unknown. We have 
seen how terribly the law pressed upon dissen- 
ters and conventicles ; the following enlightens 
us, if we need it, in reference to the Catholics : — 

" The House of Commons hath this two days been in a 
Committee of the whole House concerning Religion ; the 
occasion of which rose from the motion of a member of 
the House concerning the growth of Popery ; for giving 
ease to Protestant Dissenters, and other good things of the 
game tendency. The Committee first, and then, upon their 
report, the House have voted, that a Bill be prepared for 
a test upon the members of both Houses, that none may 
be capable of sitting there without taking it ; that another 
Bill be prepared for the speedyer conviction of Papists ; 
that the penaltyes be placed not in the crowne, but either 
in the Church, or the justices of peace, for buying in im- 
propriations or other publick uses ; that there be therein 
a clause to distinguish between Papists and Protestant Dis- 
senters ; that a very considerable reward be therein allotted 
to whosoever shall discover a Romish Priest, who shall be 



78 ANDREW MARYELL. 

proved to have said masse, or officiated as a Eomish Priest, 
or to have taken Eomish orders beyond sea or here ; that 
those who shall be found to have bin present during such 
officiating, shall incurre such penaltyes as shall be men- 
tioned ; that this law shall derogate from any former laws 
against Papist Priests : and the House resolved to enter 
Tuesday next upon further consideration of the same 
subject." 

In one place we are told, that " the Lords 
and we have agreed on an address to his Ma- 
jesty, that he wear no foreign manufacture, and 
discountenance, whether man or woman, at 
court, that shall wear them/' In another, we 
find i?70,000 voted for cc the more decent inter- 
ment of his martyred Majesty," and for raising 
a monument to him.'' On the whole, the busi- 
ness recorded in this journal, is of a most 
curious character ; the opinions of Marvell are 
not to be sought for in these notes, they are 
merely documentary, but they will be found in 
his familiar epistles. The way along which he 
had to walk, was very crooked : he was sur- 
rounded by scheming and corrupt men, but he 
fulfilled his part well ; his dealings with Parlia- 
ment, and with the court placed him above all 
suspicion. Prudence probably reined his tongue, 
but his votes were not only given on the side of 
freedom ; but he influenced by his counsel and 
advice, the votes of others. In the course of 
his correspondence, Hull is frequently men- 
tioned, and thus we find that he was constantly 
watchful over the interests of his constituents, 
as well as the wider, and more general interests 
of his country. In fine, he performed his duty, 



ANDREW MARVELL. iV 

in such a manner that, through all time, since, 
he has been remembered and honoured — his pay 
was small indeed, but he was the last M. P. 
professing to be paid, and proud of his pay ; and 
perhaps, the last who was returned without that 
qualification, demanded by the possession of a 
certain amount of property. 



80 



CHAPTER IV. 



MARVELL AS A POET. 



Perhaps few of the persons who have heard 
of the name of Marvell at all, have heard his 
name mentioned as a poet ; — but a poet he was 
— and a very sweet one — although the fame of 
the wit and the patriot has quite eclipsed the 
fame of the lover and follower of the Muses ; 
nor, indeed, can he be mentioned in the first 
class of writers in this department. As a wit 
his fame and his worth are of the highest order 
To this, his great and mightier fellow-secretary 
and companion made but few pretensions ; for 
it is very rare that loftier imaginations are 
accompanied by wit — it is rather the twin and 
comrade of fancy. Now, in the realms of fancy, 
both in the kind which is dictated by smooth 
and pleasing resemblances, as well as that 
which originates in the grotesque and striking, 
Marvell was quite a master. His poems are of 
two kinds : those abounding in reflection and 
contemplation, and others suggested fry the 
vices and characteristics of his times. But as 
a poet, Marvell did not appear as a teacher ; 
his verses mostly originate in the spontaneous 



ANDREW MARVELL. 81 

flow of gentle thought and sweet indulgence, 
and dallying with nature. It may easily be 
seen how precious to such a mind would be the 
reveries of rural moments, — how delightful the 
quiet contemplation of nature in her wild out- 
lay of delights. It is quite difficult now to 
moor the boat against the happy islands then 
everywhere to be seen ; let a man of the most 
contemplative character muse as he will in our 
day, he must be disturbed by newspapers, by 
advertisements of new books, by the discord- 
ances of contending polemics, by the wild 
hubbub of cities, the shrill cries of commerce 
and trade ; there are few places now where he 
may be safe with himself — alone and outside of 
the bustle of the world ; nor, indeed, did 
Marvell know much of this in the after days of 
his life; but in his early manhood his writings 
are tin gpd n with the capacities for metaphysical 
abstraction, for the indulgence of long hours of 
reverie. But this is, perhaps, the history of 
the mind. Thus the dreaming youth goes on 
making realities out of the shadows around 
him, and from the forms disporting themselves 
on the waters of the fountain, and from the 
rainbows hanging over the waterfall, shaping a 
countless crowd of attendant spectres, the voice 
of Pan — eternal to youth — sounds from every 
grot and grove ; at last, the melancholy dirge 
floats forth from tRe same woods and waters — 
Pan is dead ; — the world and its occupants, 
and its draperies become less ideal, and more 
real ; the trumpet calls to the real shock and 
strife of life, and the illusions are dispelled. 
Through such a series of experiences every 
e 2 



82 ANDREW MARVELL. 

thoughtful mind passes. Marvell was no ex- 
ception. We shall be prolific in our extracts 
from his Poems, as they have seldom been 
reprinted, and indeed popularly are quite un- 
known. Few writers have left to us so dis- 
cernible and clearly marked traces of their 
progress in life and character. His lines form 
a kind of mental biography. 

There are two poems of Marvell, which we 
have never seen quoted or referred to, both ad 
dressed to Lord Fairfax ; one upon the hill and 
grove at Belborow, the other upon his lordship's 
seat, called Appleton House. We have always 
oeen disposed, ourselves, to mention them as 
containing some of the most beautiful couplets 
of our poet ; they are trulv rural, and truly 
English — abounding indeed, in the poet's pecu- 
liar lines of quaintness ; but Mating also, the 
exquisite perception of the beauti^j?f.jp^ure, 
which is only iounu with warm and glowing 
love of her. All the poems of Marvell, in which 
he describes scenery, tend to prove how much his 
heart was at home, in the midst of the shades ; 
his verses were not the production of a world- 
wearied man, but appear to have been penned 
in the first warmth of his youth ; and although 
his satires stand so high, we are grieved for 
that knowledge of the world which compelled 
him to forsake the woods and waters, the quiet 
gardens and groves to jest *at the absurdities 
q£ human nature ; or to wing shafts at its follies, 
and its vices. These impressions of nature, are 
unsophisticated — the simplest heart — the most 
generous imagination, where it has seen, and 
been tutored in the world, learns to contrast the 



ANDREW MARVELL. 83 

ways of cities with the wa) T s of fields, and the 
tenderness of nature awakens the sensibilities to 
regret the ruthlessness of man. But the lines on 
^Lppleton House, areas simple as verses penned 
in the gukuii, or mythic age ; and rural sounds 
fall upon our ear, and rural sights move be- 
fore our eye, awakening only the impression 
they are disposed to give. What a fine descrip- 
tion have we here, of mowing and mowers : — 



" And now to the abyss I pass 
Of that unfathomable grass, 
Where men like grasshoppers appear, 
But grasshoppers are giants there ; 
They in their squeaking laugh contemn 
Us as we walk more low than them, 
And from the precipices tall, 
Of the green spires to us do call 
To see men thro' their meadows dive, 
AVe wonder how they rise alive. 
As under water none does know, 
Whether he falls thro' it ; or go, 
But as the mariners who sound, 
And show upon the lead their ground, 
They bring up flowers so to be seen ; 
And prove they've at the bottom been. 
No scene that turns with engines strange 
Does oftenerthan these meadows change, 
For when the sun the grass hath vexed 
The tawny mowers enter next, 
"Who seem like Israelites to be — 
Walking on foot thro' a green sea ; 
To them the grassy deeps divide — 
And crowd a lane to either side, 



84 ANDREW MARVELL. 

With whistling scythe, and elbow strong, 
These massacre the grass along/' 

The following passage referring to the state 
of England in the time of Marvell is very 
admirably put : — 

" Oh thou, that dear and happy isle, 
The garden of the world erewhile, — 
Thou Paradise of four seas, — 
Which Heaven planted us to please ; 
But to exclude the world, did guard 
With watery if not naming sword ; 
What luckless apple did we taste 
To make us mortal, and thee waste ? 
Unhappy — shall we never more 
That sweet militia restore, 
When gardens only had their towers, 
And all the garrisons were flowers ; 
When roses only arms might bear, 
And men did rosy garlands wear ? 
Tulips in several colours barred, 
Were then the Switzers of our guard ; 
The gardener had the soldier's place, 
And his more gentle forts did trace ; 
The nursery of all things green, 
Was then the only magazine ; 
The winter quarters were the stoves 
Where he the tender plant removes ; 
But war all this doth overthrow — 
We ordnance plant and powder sow." 

There can be no doubt that it is during the 
period ^f. Marvel Ts residence in the house of 
Lord Fairfax, some time the lord-general of the 



ANDREW MARVELL. 85 

Parliamentary armies, that we are to look for 
the most poetical efforts of his pen. They are 
steeped in the love of nature, — rich, luxuriant, 
contemplative ; there is no token of the politi- 
cian,— no acerbity, no bitterness; scarce an 
allusion to the discords then shaking, from end 
to end, the land ; they are sjaffu$ed4»~peasee,— - 
they breathe the .tranquillity..' of prove and field ; 
he "had already travelled, and had seen enough 
of the world to make retirement delightful and 
Ioveable; not enough to colour it witu unhappy 
thoughts and sensations. How is it that we 
give the first emotions of our life to nature; 
that friends and fiowem^appear less lovely as we 
grow older ; that, as we become world wearied, 
the charms of nature cease to entertain and 
attract us ? — We too depart from the golden 
age, — from the beautiful garden-world, — from 
the shadowy grot and the cool fountain ; these 
do not suffice for us ; we have so excited and 
unnaturally overwrought our blood and brain, 
that we must move in a world as exciting as 
ourselves ; thus we become diseased, — thus we 
contract our mental fevers and unhallowed 
desires ; we sigh for the Hesperides we have 
left behind us, we mourn over the Eden of our 
yputh; we did not know how beautiful those 
colours were, until they had faded from us; we 
had no idea of the loveliness of those hills, tin 
freshness of those flowers, until the thick wall 
of cities shut out the prospect of the one an< 
the fragrance of the other. Thoughts^ lik 
these must arise on comparing MarvelTs earlie 
with his later poems. 

Marvell's genius, however, as a poet, was 







86 ANDREW MAltVELlW 

coloured by the age in which he lived : very 
much of his writings has upon it impressions 
of that same school, which in a few years latei% 
produced Oowky. It is very remarkable that 
such neglect has buried his verses, for they are 
equally worthy of a post in our literature with 
many of his age who are frequently quoted ; 
to be sure, tbe love of nature is that kind of 
Jove which accompanies garden rambles, rather 
^than wild wood walks. Here are lines called 



THE GARDEN. 

How vainly men themselves amaze,, 
To win the palm, the ©ak, the bays " Y 
And their incessant labours see y 
Crowned from some single herb or tree ; 
Whose short and narrow verged shades 
Does prudently their toils upbraid ; 
While all the flowers and trees do close,. 
To weave the garlands of repose. 

Fair Quiet have I found thee here,. 
And Innocence,, thy sister dear ? 
Mistaken long, I sought you then,. 
In busy companies of men. 
Your sacred plants, if here below, 
Only among the plants will grow ; 
Society is all but rude,. 
With this delicious solitude. 



No white, no red was ever seen, 
So amorous as this lovely green ; 
Fond lovers, cruel as their flame, 
Cut in these trees their mistress* name. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 8? 

Little, alas ! they know or heed, 
How far these beauties her exceed ! 
Fair trees, where'er your barks I wound, 
No name shall but your own be found. 

When we have seen our passions heat, 

Love hither makes his best retreat ; V 

The gods who mortal beauty chase, 

Still in a tree did end their race. 

Apollo hunted Daphne so, 

Only that she might laurel grow ; 

And Pan did after Syrinx speed, 

Not as a nymph, but as a seed. 

But let the reader note especially, the full 
sweetness of the following verses, — if, indeed, 
they have not been already endeared to him, 
Jn the essays of that most beloved of English 
critics and humourists, Charles Lamb. 

What wondrous life is this I lead ? 
Ripe apples drop about my head ; 
The luscious clusters of the vine, 
Upon my mouth do erush their wine. 
The nectarine and curious peach, 
Into my hands themselves do reach ; 
Stumbling on melons, as I pass 
Insnared with flowers, I fell on grass. 

Meanwhile the mind from pleasure less, 

Withdraws into Its happiness : 

The mind, the ocean where each kind, 

Does straight its own resemblance find ; 

Yet it creates, transcending these 

Far other worlds, and other seas ; 

Annihilating all that's made, 

To a green thought in a green shade. 



88 ANDREW MARVELI*. 

Here at the fountain's sliding foot, 
Or at some fruit tree's mossy root;— 
Casting the body's rest aside, 
My soul into the boughs does glide : 
There like a bird it sits and sings, 
There whets and claps its silver wings : 
And till prepared for longer flight, 
Waves in its plumes the various light. 

Such was that happy garden state, 
While man there walked without a mate : 
After a place so pure and sweet, 
What other help could yet be meet. 
But 'twas beyond a mortal's share, 
To wander solitary there ; 
Two Paradises are in one, 
To live in Paradise alone. 

How well the skilful gardener drew, 

Of flowers and herbs, this dial new f 

Where from above the milder sun 

Doe3 thro' a fragrant zodiac run. 

And as it works, the industrious bee 

Computes its time as well as we ; 

How coul d such sweet and wholesome hours,. 

Be reckoned but by herbs and flowers. 

The following also has been much admired : — 

A DROP OF DEW. 

See how the orient dew, 
Shed from the bosom of the morn, 
Into the blowing roses, 
Yet careless of its mansion new, 
For the clear region where 'twas born, 
Round in itself incloses ; 



ANDREW MAKVELL. 89 

And in its little globes' extent, 
Frames, as it can, its native element. 
How it the purple flow'r does slight, 
Scarce touching where it lys, 
But gazing back upon the skys, 
Shines with a mournful light ; 
Like its own tear, 
Because so long divided from the sphere ; 
Restless it rolls, and unsecure, 
Trembling, lest it grows impure ; 
Till the warm sun pitys its pain, 
And to the skys exhales it back again, 
So the soul, that drop, that raj 7 ", 
Of the clear fountain of eternal day ; 
Could it within the human flow'r be seen, 

Remembering still its former height, 
Shuns the sweet leaves and blossoms green ; 

And, recollecting its own light, 
Does, in its pure and circling thoughts, express 
The greater heaven in an heaven less. 
In how coy a figure wound, 
Every way it turns away ; 
So the world excluding round, 

Yet receiving in the day. 
Dark beneath, but bright above ; 
Here disdaining, there in love. 
How loose and easy hence to go ; 
How girt and ready to ascend ; 
Moving but on a point below, 
It all about does upward bend. 
Such did the manna's sacred dew distil, 
White and entire, although congealed and chill ; 
Congeal'd on earth ; but does, dissolving, run 
Into the glorys of th' almighty sun. 



90 ANDREW MAUVELL. 

But then there was another source of in- 
spiration in those days — Marvel I was in love ; 
but the lady did not, it appears, return ins 
affection. Love never flames indeed, until it 
is reciprocated, — it depends for its intensity 
upon mutual sympathy : the most precious 
portion of love is in the sympathy of heart and 
heart, and the winding of the bondage of 
mutual hopes, and duties, and fears round the 
pair ; — the absence of this is deplored in all 
the amorous lyrics of our noet, and it must be 
admitted, that they are among the sweetest 
love poems in the language. There is no trace 
to guide us to the knowledge of the lady — she 
is an Incognito. Was it his pupil, the daugh- 
ter of Lord Fairfax? The following lines 
might colour this supposition : — 

My love is of a birth as rare, 
As 'tis for object strange and high ; 

It was begotten by despair, 
Upon Impossibility. 

Magnanimous despair alone, 

Could show me so divine a thing ; 

When feeble Hope could ne'er have flown, 
But vainly flapp'd its tinsel wing. 

And yet I quickly might arrive — 
Where my extended soul is fixed ; 

But fate does iron wedges drive, 
And always crowds itself bewixt. 

As lines so loves oblique may well 
Themselves in every angle great 



ANDREW MARVELL. 91 

But ours so truly parallel — 
The infinite can never meet ! 

Therefore the love which us doth bind, 

But fate so enviously debars, — 
Is the conjunction of the mind, 

But opposition of the stars. 

Or was it some humbler person? whoever she 
was, it would seem, she was not ignorant of 
MarvelTs attachment ; the verses we quoted 
imply as much. From of old, it is no fable 
that the poets have been unfortunate in their 
loves. Sir Philip Sydney, the finest gentle- 
man, in the truest sense, of his age ; poet, 
soldier, scholar, and — more important than all 
these — most pre-eminently handsome, was un- 
successful ; — Milton, mournfully so, — Shak 
spere, not much better, — Tasso, — Dante, — 
Petrarch : to be a poet has been almost neces- 
sarily doomed to disappointment ; yet Marvell 
was a fine man, a wit, a scholar, — a gentleman 
endowed with sensibility ; — the mystery is not 
likely to be solved. Some of the verses are 
extremely beautiful ; and many of the lines 
in the following to his coy Mistress — almost 
sublime, — 

TO HIS COY MISTRESS. 

Had we but world enough, and time, 
This coyness, lady, were no crime. 
We would sit down and think which way 
To walk, and pass our long love's day. 
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side 
Should' st rubies find : I by the tide 



92 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Of Humber would complain : I would 
Love you ten year3 before the flood : 
And you should, if you please, refuse 
Till the conversion of the Jews. 
My vegetable love should grow 
Vaster than empires, and more slow. 
An hundred years should go to praise 
Thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze ; 
Two hundred to adore each breast ; 
But thirty thousand to the rest. 
An age at least to every part, 
And the last age should shew your heart. 
For, lady, you deserve this state ; 
Nor would I love at lower rate. 



But at my back I always hear 
Time's winged chariot hurrying near ; 
And yonder all before us lie 
Deserts of vast eternity. 
Thy beauty shall no more be found ; 
Nor, m thy marble vault, shall sound 
3fy echoing song : then worms shall try 
That long-preserv'd virginity : 
And your quaint honour turn to dust ; 
And into ashes all my lust. 
The grave's a fine and private place, 
But none, I think, do there embrace. 



Now, therefore, while the youthful hue 
Sits on thy skin like morning dew, 
And while thy willing soul transpires 
At every pore with instant fires, 
Now let us sport us as we may ; 
And now, like am'rous birds of prey, 



ANDREW MARVELL. 93 

Rather at once our time devour, 

Than languish in his slow chap'd power. 

Let us roll all our strength, and all 

Our sweetness up into one ball : 

And tear our pleasures with rough strife, 

Through the iron gates of life. 

Thus, though we cannot make our sun 

Stand still, yet we will make him run. 



THE UNFORTUNATE LOYER. 



I 



Alas ! how pleasant are their days, 
With whom the infant love yet plays ! 
Sorted by pairs, they still are seen, 
By fountains cool, and shadows green ; 
But soon these flames do lose their light, 
Like meteors of a summer's night ; 
Nor can they to that region climb, 
To make impression upon time. 
'Twas in a shipwreck, when the seas 
RuTd, and the winds did what they please 
That my poor lover floating lay, 
And, ere brought forth, was cast away 
'Till at the last the master wave 
Upon the rock his mother drave ; 
And there she split against the stone, 
In a Csesarian section. 
The sea him lent these bitter tears, 
"Which at his eyes he always bears 
And from the winds the sighs he bore, 
Which thro' his surging breast do roar. 
No day he saw but that which breaks, 
Thro' frighted clouds, in forked streaks 



94 ANDREW MARVELL. 

While found the rattling thunder hurl'd, 
As at the fun'ral of the world. 
While nature to his birth presents 
This masque of quarrelling elements, 
A num'rous fleet of corm' rants black, 
That sail'd insulting o'er the wreck, 
Receiv'd into their cruel care, 
Th' unfortunate and abject heir ; 
Guardians most fit to entertain 
The orphan of the hurricane. 
They fed him up with hopes and air, 
Which soon digested to despair, 
And as one corm'rant fed him, still 
Another on his heart did bill. 
Thus, when they famish him, and feast, 
He both consumed, and increas'd : 
And languished with doubtful breath, 
The amphibium of life and death. 
And now, when angry heaven would 
Behold a spectacle of blood, 
Fortune and he are call'd to play 
At sharp before it all the day ; 
And tyrant Love his breast does ply 
With all his wing'd artillery ; 
Whilst he, betwixt the flames and waves, 
Like Ajax, the mad tempest braves. 
See how he nak'd and fierce does stand, 
Cuffing the thunder with one hand ; 
While with the other he does lock, 
And grapple, with the stubborn rock ; 
From which he with each wave rebounds, 
Torn into flames, and ragg'd with wounds : 
And all he says, a lover drest 
In his own blood does relish best. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 95 

This is the only banneret, 
That ever love created yet ; 
Who, tho' by the malignant stars, 
Forced to live in storms and wars ; 
Yet dying, leaves a perfume here, 
And music within every ear : 
And he in story only rules, 
In a field sable, a lover gules, 



THE GALLEKY. 

Chlora, come view my soul, and tell 
Whether I have contriv'd it well. 
How all its several lodgings lye, 
Compos' d into one gallery ; 
And the great arras-hangings, made 
Of various faces, by are laid ; 
That, for all furniture, you'll find 
Only your picture in my mind. 
Here thou art painted in the dress 
Of an inhuman murtheress ; 
Examining upon our hearts, 
Thy fertile shop of cruel arts ; 
Engines more keen than ever yet 
Adorn'd a tyrant's cabinet ; 
Of which the most tormenting are, 
Black eyes, red lips, and curled hair. 
But, on the other side, th* art drawn, 
Like to Aurora in the dawn ; 
When in the east she slumb'ring lyes, 
And stretches out her milky thighs ; 
While all the morning quire does sing, 
And Manna falls and roses spring ; 



86 ANDREW MARVELL. 

And, st thy feet, the wooing doves 

Sit perfecting their harmless loves. 

Like an enchantress here thou show'st, 

Vexing thy restless lover's ghost ; 

And, by a light obscure, dost rave 

Over his entrails, in the cave ; 

Divining thence, with horrid care, 

How long thou shalt continue fair ; 

And (when inform' d) them throw' st away, 

To be the greedy vulture's prey. 

But, against that, thou sitt'st afloat, 

Like Venus in her pearly boat ; 

The halcyons, calming all that's nigh, 

Betwixt the air and water fly. 

Or, if some rowling wave appears, 

A mass of ambergrease it bears. 

Nor blows more wind than what may well 

Convoy the perfume to the smell. 

These pictures, and a thousand more, 

Of thee, my gallery do store, 

In all the forms thou can'st invent, 

Either to please me, or torment ; 

For thou alone, to people me, 

Art grown a num'rous colony ; 

And a collection choicer far 

Than or Whitehall's, or Mantua's were. 

But of these pictures, and the rest, 

That at the entrance likes me best, 

Where the same posture, and the look 

Remains, with which I first was took 

A tender shepherdess, whose hair 

Hangs loosely playing in the air, . 

Transplanting flow'rs from the green hill, 

To crown her head, and bosom fill. 



ANDREW MARVRLL. 97 



THE FAIR SINGER. 

To make a final conquest of all me, 

Love did compose so sweet an enemy, 

In whom both beauties to my death agree, 

Joining themselves in fatal harmony ; 

That, while she with her eyes my heart does bind, 

She with her voice might captivate my mind. 

I could have fled from one but singly fair ; 
My disintangled soul itself might save, 
BreakiDg the curled trammels of her hair ; 
But how should I avoid to be her slave, 
Whose subtle art invisibly can wreathe 
My fetters of the very air I breathe ? 

It had been easy fighting on some plain, 
Where victory might hang in equal choice ; 
But all resistance against her is vain, 
Who has the advantage both of eyes and voice 
And all my forces needs must be undone, 
She having gained both wind and sun, 



THE MATCH. 

Nature had long a treasure made, 

Of all her choicest store : 
Fearing when she should be decay 'd, 

To beg in vain for more. 

Her oriental colours there, 

And essences most pure, 
With sweetest perfumes hoarded were, 

All, as she thought, secure. 
F 



98 ANDREW MARVELL. 

She seldom them unlocked or us'd, 
But with the nicest care, 

For, with one grain of them diffus'd, 
She could the world repair. 

But likeness soon together drew, 
What she did separate lay ; 

Of which one perfect beauty grew, 
And that was Celia. 

Love wisely had of long foreseen, 
That he must once grow old ; 

And therefore stor'd a magazine, 
To save him from the cold. 



He kept the several cells complete 

With nitre thrice refin'd ; 
The naptha's and the sulphur's heat, 

And all that burns the mind. 

He fortified the double gate, 

And rarely thither came ; 
For, with one spark of these, he straight 

All nature could inflame. 

Till, by vicinity so long, 

A nearer way they sought ; 
And, grown magnetically strong, 

Into each other wrought. 

Thus all his fewel did unite 

To make one fire high : 
None ever burn'd so hot, so bright : 

And, Celia, that am I. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 99 

So we alone the happy rest, 

Whilst all the world is poor, • 
And have within ourselves possess'd 

All love's and nature's store. 



THE MOWER AGAINST GARDENS. 

Luxurious man, to bring his vice in use, 

Did after him the world seduce ; 
And from the fields the flowers and plants allure, 

Where nature was most plain and pure. 
He first enclos'd within the gardens square 

A dead and standing pool of air ; 
And a more luscious earth from them did knead, 

Which stupify'd them while it fed. 
The pink grew then as double a3 his mind ; 

The nutriment did change the kind. 
With strange perfumes he did the roses taint ; 

And flowers themselves were taught to paint. 
The tulip white did for complexion seek ; 

And learn' d to interline its cheek : 
Its union root they then so high did hold, 

That one was for a meadow sold. 
Another world was search' d through oceans new, 

To find the marble of Peru. 
And yet these rarity s might be allow' d, 

To man, that sov'reign thing and proud ; 
Had he not dealt between the bark and tree, 

Forbidden mixtures there to see. 
No plant now knew the stock from which it came 

He grafts upon the wild the tame ; 
That the uncertain and adult' rate fruit 

Might put the palate in dispute. 



100 ANDREW MARVELL, 

His green seraglio has it eunuchs too ; 

Lest any tyrant him out-do. 
And in the cherry he does nature vex, 

To procreate without a sex. 
'Tis all enforc'd; the fountain, and the grot ; 

While the sweet fields do lye forgot : 
Where willing nature does to all dispense 

A wild and fragrant innocence ; 
And Fauns and fairies do the meadows till, 

More by their presence than their skill. 
Their statues, polish' d by some ancient hand, 

May to adorn the gardens stand : 
But howsoe'er the figures do excel, 

The Gods themselves with us do dwell. 



DAMON THE MOWEK. 

Hark how the Mower Damon sung, 
With love of Juliana stung ! 
While ev'ry thing did seem to paint 
The scene more fit for his complaint. 
Like her fair eyes the day was fair ; 
But scorching like his am'rous care. 
Sharp, like his scythe, his sorrow was, 
And wither'd, like his hopes, the grass. 

Oh what unusual heats are here, 
Which thus our sun-burn' d meadows fear ! 
The grass-hopper its pipe gives o'er ; 
And hamstring' d frogs can dance no more ; 
But in the brook the green frog wades ; 
And grass-hoppers seek out the shades. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 101 

Only the snake, that kept within, 
Now glitters in its second skin. 

This heat the sun could never raise, 
Nor dog-star inflame the days ; 
It from an higher beauty grow'th, 
Which burns the fields and mower both 
Which makes the dog, and makes the sun 
Hotter than his own Phoeton. 
Not July causeth these extremes, 
But Juliana's scorching beams. 

Tell me where I may pass the fires 
Of the hot day, or hot desires. 
To what cool cave shall I descend, 
Or to what gelid fountain bend ? 
Alas ! I look for ease in vain, 
WTien remedys themselves complain, 
No moisture but my tears do rest, 
Nor cold but in her icy breast. 

How long wilt thou, fair shepherdess, 
Esteem me and my presents less ? 
To thee the harmless snake I bring, 
Disarmed of its teeth and sting. 
To thee chameleons, changing-hue, 
And oak leaves tip with honey dew. 
Yet thou ungrateful hast not sought 
What they are, nor who them brought. 

I am the mower .Damon, knowji_ 
Through all the meadows I have mown. 
On me the morn her dew distils 
Before her darling daffodils. 
And, if at noon my toil me heat, 
The sun himself licks off my sweat ; 



]02 ANDREW MARVELL. 

While going home the evening sweet 

In cowslip -water baths my feet. 

What though the piping shepherd stock 

The plains with an unnumberd flock, 

This scythe of mine discovers wide 

More ground than all his sheep do hide. 

With this the golden fleece I shear 

Of all these closes ev'ry year, 

And though in wool more poor than they, 

Yet am I richer far in hay. 

Nor am I so deform' d to fight, 
If in ray scythe I looked right ; 
In which I see my picture done, 
As in a crescent moon the sun. 
The deathless fairys take me oft 
To lead them in their dances soft : 
And when I tune myself to sing, 
About me they contract their ring. 

How happy might I still have mow'd, 
Had not Love here his thistle sow'd ! 
But now I all the day complain, 
Joining my labour to my pain ; 
And with my scythe cut down the grass, 
Yet still my grief is where it was ; 
But when the iron blunter grows, 
Sighing I whet my scythe and woes. 

While thus he drew his elbow round, 
Depopulating all the ground, 
And, with his whistling scythe, does cut 
Each stroke between the earth and root, 
The edged steel, by careless chance, 
Did into his own ankle glance ; 
And there among the grass fell down, 
By his own ecythe the mower mown 



ANDREW MARVELL. 103 

Alas ! said he, these hurts are slight 
To those that dye by love's despight. 
With shepherd' s-purse, and clowns-all-heal, 
The blood I stanch and wound I seaL 
Only for him no cure is found, 
Whom Juliana's eyes do wound. 
9 Tis death alone that this must do ; 
For Death thou art a Mower too. 



THE MOWER TO THE GLOW WORMS. 

Ye living lamps, by whose dear light 
The nightingale does sit so late, 
And studying all the summer night, 
Her matchless songs meditate : 

Ye country comets, that porfcend 
No war, nor prince's funeral, 
Shining unto no other end 
Than to presage the grass's fall. 

Ye Glow-worms, whose officious flame 
To wandering mowers shows the way, 
That in the night have lost their aim, 
And after foolish fires do stray ; 

Your courteous lights in vain you waste, 
Since Juliana here is come, 
For she my mind hath so displac'd, 
That I shall never find my home. 



104 ANDREW MARVELL, 



THE MOWER'S SONG. 



My mind was once the true survey 

Of all these meadows fresh and gay • 
And in the greenness of the grass 

Did see its hopes as in a glass ; 
When Juliana came, and she, 

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. 

But these, while I with sorrow pine, 

Grew more luxuriant still and fine : 
That not one blade of grass you spy'd, 

But had a flower on either side ; 
When Juliana came, and she, 

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. 

Unthankful meadows, could y:m so 

A fellowship so true forego, 
And in your gaudy May -games meet, 

While I lay trodden under feet ? 
When Juliana came, and she, 

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. 

But what you in compassion ought, 

Shall now By my revenge be wrought ; 
And flow'rs, and grass, And I, and all, 

Will "in one common ruin fall • 
For Juliana comes, and she, 

What I do to the grass, does ta my thoughts and me, 

And thus, ye meadows, which have been 
Companions of my thoughts more green, 

Shall now the heraldry become 

With which I shall adorn my tomb ; 

For Juliana comes, and she, 

What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 105 



AM ETAS AND THESTYLIS MAKING HAY-ROPES, 



Think'st though that this love can stand, 
Whilst thou still dost say me nay ? 

Love unpaid does soon disband : 
Love binds love, as hay binds hay. 

THESTYLIS. 

Think'st thou that this rope would twine, 
If we both should turn one way ? 

Where both party s so combine, 
Neither love will twist, nor hay. 



Thus you vain excuses find, 
Which yourself and us delay : 

And love tyes a woman's mind, 
Looser than with ropes of hay. 



THESTYLIS. 



What you cannot constant hope 
Must be taken as you may. 



AMETAS. 



Then let's both lay by our rope, 

And go kiss within the hay. 
F 2 



106 ANDREW MAE V ELL. 

The following fanciful and ingenious " Dia- 
logue between Soul and Body? is well known 
as the original of several quaint and witty 
imitations : — 



who shall from this dungeon raise 
A soul enslav'd so many ways ? 
With bolts and bones, that fetter' d stands 
In feet, and manacled in hands. 
Here blinded with an eye, and there 
Deaf with the drumming of an ear, 
A soul hung up, as 'twere, in chains 
Of nerves, and arteries, and veins. 
Tortur'd, besides each other part, 
In a vain head, and double heart. 

BODY. 

who shall me deliver whole, 
From bonds of this tyrannic soul ? 
Which stretch'd upright, impales me so, 
That mine own precipice I go ; 
And warms and moves this needless frame ; 
(A fever could but do the same.) 
And, wanting where its spite to try, 
Has made me live to let me die. 
A body that could never rest, 
Since this ill spirit it possess' d. 

SOUL. 

What magic could me thu3 confine 
Within another's grief to pine ? 



ANDREW MARVELL. 107 

Where, whatsoever it complain, 
I feel, that cannot feel, the pain. 
And all my care itself employs, 
That to preserve which me destroys 
Constraint not only to endure 
Diseases, but what's worse, the cure 
And ready oft the port to gain, 
And shipwreck'd into health again, 



But physic yet could never reach 
The maladies thou dost me teach ; 
Whom first the cramp of hope does tear 
And then the palsy shakes of fear. 
The pestilence of love doth heat, 
Or hatred's hidden ulcer eat. 
Joy's cheerful madness does perplex ; 
Or sorrow's other madness vex. 
Which knowledge forces me to know ; 
And memory will not forego. 
What but a soul could have the wit 
To build me up for sin so fit ? 
So architects do square and hew 
Green trees that in the forest grew. 



A DIALOGUE BETWEEN THE RESOLVED SOUL, 
AND CREATED PLEASURE. 

Coubage, my soul, now learn to wield 
The weight of thine immortal shield. 
Close on thy head thy helmet bright ; 
Balance thy sword against the fight. 
See where an army, strong as fair, 
With silken banners spread the air, 



108 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Now, if thou be'st that thing divine, 
In this day's combat let it shine 
And shew that nature wants an art 
To conquer one resolved heart. 

PLEASURE. 

Welcome the creation's suesij 
Lord of earth, and heaven's heir ; 

Lay aside that warlike crest, 
And of nature's banquet share 

Where the souls of fruits and flowers 

Stand prepar'd to heighten yours. 



I sup above, and cannot stay, 
To bait so long upon the way. 

PLEASURE. 

On these downy pillows lie, 
Whose soft plumes will thither fly 
On these roses, strew'd so plain, 
Lest one leaf thy side should strain. 



My gentle rest is on a thought, 
Conscious of doing what I ought. 

PLEASURE. 

If thou be'st with perfumes pleas' d, 
Such as oft the gods appeas'd, 
Thou in fragrant clouds shall show, 
Like another god below. 



ANDREW MAHVELL. 109 



SOUL. 



A soul that knows not to presume. 
Is heaven's, and its own, perfume. 



PLEASURE. 



Every thing does seem to vie 
Which should first attract thine eye : 
But, since none deserves that grace, 
In this crystal view thy face. 



SOUL. 



When the Creator's skill is priz'd, 
The rest is all but earth disguis'd. 



PLEASURE. 



Hark ! how music then prepares, 
For thy stay, these charming airs ; 
Which the posting winds recall, 
And suspend the river's fall. 



Had I but any time to lose, 

On this I would it all dispose. 

Cease, tempter. None can chain a mind, 

Whom this sweet cordage cannot bind. 

-CHORUS. 

Earth cannot shew so brave a sight, 
As when a single soul does fence 
The batt'ry of alluring sense ; 

And heaven views it with delight. 



110 ANDREW MARVELX. 

Then persevere ; for still new charges sound; 
And, if thou overcom'st, thou shalt be crown- d, 

PLEASURE. 

All that's costly, fair, and sweet, 
Which scatteringly doth shine,, 

Shall within one beauty meet, 
And she be only thine* 

SOUL. 

If things of sight such heavens be, 
What heavens are those we cannot see 

PLEASURE. 

Whereso'er thy foot shall go 

The minted gold shall lie ; 
Till thou purchase all below, 

And want new worlds to buy. 



Wer't not for price, who'd value gold ? 
And that's worth nought that can be sold. 

PLEASURE. 

Wilt thou all glory have 

That war or peace commend ? 

Half the world shall be thy slave* 
The other half thy friend. 

SOUL. 

What friends, if to myself untrue 
What slaves, unless I captive you f 



ANDREW MAEVELL. Ill 

PLEASUEE. 

Thou shalt know each hidden cause ; 

And see the future time : 
Try what depth the centre draws ; 

And then to heaven climb. 

SOUL. 

None thither mounts by the degree 
Of knowledge, but humility. 

CHORUS. 

Triumph, triumph, victorious soul ! 

The world has not one pleasure more : 
The rest does lie beyond the pole, 

And is thine everlasting store. 

Our readers will, perhaps, think they have 
been too long detained with these extracts ; 
but most of them are not only truly beautiful, 
but nearly a hundred years have elapsed since 
they have been printed in any shape. They 
exhibit only, however, one side of our author's 
sensibility. There were far more serious 
objects presented to his thought ; not merely 
the light forms of beauty — the inspiration 
of the garden — and the affections of sympathy 
and love. Perhaps these conducted him 
into a loftier region of thought — the struggles 
of our inner, with our outer, nature, — these 
were the subjects of his verse — the region of the 
passions. The war of the spirit — against the 
flesh ; — the contest of ignoble and servile prin- 
ciples with lofty hopes and anticipations. We 



112 ANDREW MARVELL. 

are pleased, too, to perceive his writings not 
wanting in those thoughts which wear more 
definitely the stamp of religious experience as 
in the following, called : — 



THE CORONET. 

When with the thorns with which I long, too long, 
With many a piercing wound, 
My Saviour's head have crown' d, 
I seek with garlands to redress that wrong ; 
Through every garden, every mead, 
I gather flow'rs (my fruits are only flow'rs) 
Dismantling all the fragrant towers 
That once adorn' d my shepherdess's head. 
And now, when I have summ'd up all my store, 
Thinking (so I myself deceive) 
So rich a chaplet thence to weave 
As never yet the King of Glory wore ; 
Alas ! I find the Serpent old, 
Twining in his speckled breast, 
About the flow'rs disguis'd does fold, 
With wreaths of fame and interest. 
Ah, foolish man, that would' st debase with them, 
And mortal glory, Heaven's diadem ! 
But thou who only could'st the Serpent tame, 
Either his slipp'ry knots at once untie, 
And disintangle all his winding snare ; 
Or shatter too with him my curious frame ; 
And let these wither so that he may die, 
Though set with skill, and chosen out with care. 
That they, while thou on both their spoils dost tread, 
May crown thy feet, that could not crown thy head. 



AN'DREW MARVELL. US 



REMONSTRANCE AGAINST CRUELTY. 

Why should man's high aspiring mind 

Burn in him with so proud a breath, 
When all his haughty views can find 

In this world, yields to Death ? 
The fair, the brave, the vain, the wise, 

The rich, the poor, and great, and small,. 
Are each but worms' anatomys, 

To strew his quiet halL 

Power may make many earthly gods, 

Where gold and bribery's guilt prevails, 
But Death's unwelcome honest odds 

Kicks o'er the unequal scales. 
The flatter' d great may clamours raise 

Of power, and their own weakness hide, 
But Death shall find unlooked-for ways 

To end the farce of pride. 

An arrow, hurtel'd ere so high 

From e'en a giant's sinewy strength, 
In Time's un traced eternity, 

Goes but a pigmy length. 
Nay, whirring from the tortured stringy 

With all its pomp of hurried flight, 
'Tis by the skylark's little wing 

Outmeasured in its height. 

Just so man's boasted strength and power 
Shall fade, before Death's lightest stroke ; 

Laid lower than the meanest flower 
Whose pride o'ertopt the oak. 



114 ANDREW MARVELL. 

And he who, like a blighting blast, 
Dispeopled worlds with war's alarms, 

Shall be himself destroyed at last 
By poor despised worms. 

Tyrants in vain their powers secure, 

And awe slaves' murmurs with a frown ; 
But unawed Death at last is sure 

To sap the Babels down. 
A stone thrown upward to the skye 

Will quickly meet the ground agen ; 
So men-gods of earth's vanity 

Shall drop at last to men ; 

And power and pomp their all resign, 

Blood-purchased thrones and banquet halls. 
Fate waits to seek Ambition's shrine 

As bare as prison walls, 
Where the poor suffering wretch bows down 

To laws a lawless power hath past ; 
And pride, and power, and king, and clown, 

Shall be Death's slaves at last. 

Time, the prime minister of I^e„ath, \ 

There's nought can bribe his will ; 
He stops the richest tyrant's breath, 

And lays his mischief still : 
Each wicked scheme for power all stops, 

With grandeurs false and mock display, 
As eve's shades from high mountain tops, 

Fade with the rest away. 

Death levels all things in his march, 
Nought can resist his mighty strength ; 

The palace proud, triumphal arch, 
Shall mete their shadows' length ; 



ANDREW MARVELL. 135 

The rich, the poor, one common bed 

Shall find in the unhonour'd grave, 
"Where weeds shall crown alike the head 

Of tyrant and of slave. 

One of the pleasantest of MarvelPs poems, is 
his character of Holland. It is pregnant 
vritb wit, and though long, we shall quolo Uie 
greater part of it : — 



THE CHARACTER OF HOLLAND. 

Holland, that scarce deserves the name of land, 
As but th' the off-scouring of the British sand ; 
And so much earth as was contributed 
By English pilots when they heav'd the lead ; 
Or what by th' ocean's slow alluvion fell, 
Of shipwreck' d cockle and the muscle shell ; 
This indigested vomit of the sea 
Fell to the Dutch by just propriety. 

Glad, then, as miners who have found the ore, 
They, with mad labour, fish'd the land to shore ; 
And div'd as desperately for each piece 
Of earth, as if't had been of ambergris ; 
Collecting anxiously small loads of clay, 
Less than what building swallows bear away, 
Or than those pills which sordid beetles roll, 
Transfusing into them their dunghill soul. 

How did they rivet with gigantic piles, 
Through the centre their new-catched miles ! 



116 ANDREW MARVELL. 

And to the stake a struggling country bound, 
Where barking waves still bait the forced ground ; 
Building their watery Babel far more high 
To reach the sea, than those to scale the sky. 

Yet still his claim the injur'd ocean lay'd, 
And oft at leap-frog o'er their steeples play'd ; 
As if on purpose it on land had come 
To shew them what's their mare liberum. 
A daily deluge over them does boil ; 
The earth and water play at level coil. 
The fish oft times the burgher dispossess' d, 
And sat, not as a meat, but as a guest ; 
And oft the Tritons, and the sea-nymphs, saw 
Whole shoals of Dutch serv'd up for Cabillau ; 
Or, as they over the new level rang'd 
For pickled herring, pickled herring chang'd. 
Mature, it seem'd, asham'd of her mistake, 
Would throw their land away at duck and drake, 
Therefore necessity that first made kings, 
Something like government among them brings. 
For, as with pigmies, who best kills the crane, 
Among the hungry he that treasures grain, 
Among the blind the one-ey'd blinkard reigns, 
So rules among the drowned he that drains. 
Not who first see the rising sun commands : 
But who could first discern the rising lands. 
Who best could know to pump an earth so leak, 
Him they their Lord, and Country s father, speak. 
To make a bank, was a great plot of state ; 
Invent a shov'l, and be a magistrate. 
Hence some small dike grave, unperceiv'd, invades 
The pow'r, and grows, as 'twere, a king of spades ; 
But, for less envy some join'd states endures, 
Who look like a commission of the sewers : 



ANDREW MARVELL. 117 

For these Halfanders, half wet, and half dry, 
Nor bear strict service, nor pure liberty. 

Tis probable religion, after this, 
Came next in order ; which they could not miss. 
How could the Dutch but be converted, when 
Th' Apostles were so many fishermen ; I » 

Besides, the waters of themselves did rise, 
And, as their land, so them did re -baptise ; 
Tho' herring for their God few voices miss'd, 
And Poor-John to have been th' Evangelist. 
Faith, that could never twins conceive before, 
Never so fertile, spawn' d upon this shore 
More pregnant than their Marg'ret, that lay'd down 
For Hans-in-Kelder of a whole Hans-Town. 

Sure when Religion did itself embark, 
And from the east would westward steer its ark, 
It struck, and splitting on this unkn own ground, 
Each one thence pillag'd the first piece he found : 
Hence Amsterdam, Turk- Christian-Pagan- Jew, 
Staple of sects, and mint of schism grew ; 
That bank of conscience, where not one so strange 
Opinion but finds credit, and exchange. 
In vain for Catholics ourselves we bear ; 
The universal church is only there. 
Nor can civility there want for tillage, 
Where wisely for their court they chose a village. 
How fit a title cloaths their governors, 
Themselves the hogs, as all their subjects boars ! 

Let it suffice to give their country fame, 
That it had one Civilis call'd by name, 
Some fifteen hundred and more years ago ; 
But surely never any that was so. 



118 ANDREW MARVELL. 

See but their mermaids, with their tails of fish, 

Reeking at church over the chasing-dish. 

A vestal turf, enshrin'd in earthenware, 

Fumes thro' the loop-holes of a wooden square. 

Each to the temple with these altars tend, 

But still does place it at her western end ; 

While the fat steam of female sacrifice 

Fills the priest s nostrils, and puts out his eyes. 
***** 

And now again our armed Bucentore 
Doth yearly their sea nuptials restore ; 
And now the Hydra of seven provinces 
Is strangled by our infant Hercules. 
Their tortoise wants its vainly stretched neck ; 
Their navy, all our conquest, or our wreck ; 
Or, what is left, their Carthage overcome, 
Would render fain unto our better Home ; 
Unless our senate, lest their youth disuse 
The war, (but who would) peace, if beg'd, refuse. 
For now of nothing may our state despair, 
Darling of heaven, and of men the care ; 
Provided that they be what they have been, 
Watchful abroad, and honest still within ! 
For while our Neptune doth a trident shake, 
Steel' d with those piercing heads, Dean, Monck, and 

Blake, 
And while Jove governs in the highest sphere, 
Vainly in hell let Pluto domineer. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 119 



BRITANNIA AND RALEIGH. 



BRITANNIA. 

Ah ! Raleigh, when thou didst thy breath resign 
To trembling James, would I had quitted mine ! 
"Cubs," didst thou call them? Had'st thou seen this 

brood 
Of Earls and Dukes, and Princes of the blood ; 
No more of Scottish race thou would'st complain, 
Those would be blessings in this spurious reign. 
Awake, arise, from thy long bless' d repose, 
Once more with me partake of mortal woes. 

BALEIGH. 

What mighty power has forced me from my rest ? 
Oh ! mighty queen, why so untimely dress'd ? 

BRITANNIA. 

Favour'd by night, conceal' d in this disguise, 
Whilst the lewd court in drunken slumber lies, 
I stole away, and never will return, 
Till England knows who did her city burn ; 
Till Cavaliers shall favourites be deem'd, 
And loyal sufferers by the court esteem'd ; 
Till Leigh and Galloway* shall bribes reject ; 
Thus Osborne's golden cheat I shall detect : 

* Leigh and Galloway were suspected to be bribed by 
the Earl of Danby, to vote with the Court. 



120 ANDREW MAKVELL. 

Till atheist Laudeedale shall leave this land, 

And Commons' votes shall cut-nose guards disband ; 

Till Kate a happy mother shall become 

Till Chaeles loves Parliaments, and James hates Rome. 



What fatal crimes make you for ever fly 
Your once loved court, and Martyr's progeny ? 



BEITANNIA. 

A colony of French possess' d the court ; 

Pimps, priests, buffoons, in privy-chamber sport. 

Such slimy monsters ne'er approach'd a throne 

Since Pharoah's days, nor so defiled a crown. 

In sacred ear tyrannic arts they croak, 

Pervert his mind, and good intentions choak ; 

Tell him of golden India's fairy lands, 

Leviathan, and absolute commands. 

Thus, fairy-like, they steal the King away, 

And in his room a changeling Louis lay. 

How oft have I him to himself restored, 

In's left the scale, in's right hand placed the sword ! 

Taught him their use, what dangers would ensue 

To them who strive to separate these two ; 

The bloody Scottish chronicle read o'er, 

Show'd him how many Kings in purple gore 

Were hurl'd to hell by cruel tyrant Lore ? 

The other day famed Spensee I did bring, 
In lofty notes Tudor s bless'd race to sing ; 
How Spain's proud powers her virgin arms controll'd, 
And golden days in peaceful order roll'd ; 



ANDREW MARVELL. 121 

How like ripe fruit she dropp'd from off her throne, 
Full of grey hairs, good deeds, and great renown. 
As the Jessean hero did appease 
Saul's stormy rage, and stopp'd his black disease, 
So the learn' d bard, with artful song, suppress'd 
The swelling passion of his canker' d breast, 
And in his heart kind influences shed 
Of country's love, by truth and justice bred. 
Then to perform the cure so well begun, 
To him I show'd this glorious setting sun ; 
How, by her people's looks pursued from far, 
She mounted on a bright celestial ear, 
Outshining Virgo or the Julian star. 
Whilst in Truth s mirror this good scene he spied, 
Enter' d a dame bedeck'd with spotted pride : 
Fair flower-de-luce within an azure field 
Her left hand bears the ancient Gallic shield 
By her usurp'd ; her right a bloody sword, 
Inscribed "Leviathan our Sovereign Lord;" 
Her towery front a fiery meteor bears, 
An exhalation bred of blood and tears. 
Around her Jove's lewd ravenous curs eomplain, 
Pale Death, lust, tortures fill her pompous train ; 
She from the easy King Truth's mirror took, 
And on the ground in spiteful fall it broke ; 
Then frowning thus, with proud disdain she spoke : 
"Are thread-bare virtues ornaments for Kings ? 
Such poor pedantic toys teach underlings. 
Do monarchs rise by virtue, or by sword ? 
Who e'er grew great by keeping of his word ? 
Virtue's a faint green-sickness to brave souls, 
Dastards their hearts, their active heat controls. 
The rival gods, monarchs of t' other world, 
This mortal poison among princes hurl'd ; 
Fearing the mighty projects of the great 
G 



122 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Should drive them from their proud celestial seat, 

If not o'erawed by this new holy cheat. 

These pious frauds, too slight t' ensnare the brave, 

Are proper arts the long-ear' d rout t' enslave. 

Bribe hungry priests to deify your might, 

To teach your will's your only rule to right, 

And sound damnation to all dare deny't. 

Thus heaven's designs against heaven you shall turn, 

And make them feel those powers they once did scorn. 

When all the gobbling interest of mankind, 

By hirelings sold, to you shall be resign'd : 

And by impostures God and man betray' d, 

The church and state you safely may invade ; 

So boundless Louis in fully glory shines, 

Whilst your starved power in legal fetters pines. 

Shake off those baby-bands from your strong arms, 

Henceforth be deaf to that old witch's charms. 

'Taste the delicious sweets of sovereign power, 

Tis royal game whole kingdoms to deflower. 

Three spotless virgins to your bed I'll bring, 

A sacrifice to you, their God, and King. 

As these grow stale, we'll harass human kind, 

Rack nature, till new pleasures you shall find, 

Strong as your reign, and beauteous as your mind." 

When she had spoke, a confused murmur rose, 
Of French, Scotch, Irish, all my mortal foes ; 
Some English too ! shame ! disguised I spied 
Led all by the wise son-in-law of Hyde. 
With fury drunk, like Bacchanals they roar, 
a Down with that common Magna-Charta whore !" 
With joint consent on helpless me they flew, 
And from my Charles to a base gaol me drew ; 
My reverend age, exposed to scorn and shame, 
To prigs, bawds, whores, was made the public game. 



ANDREW MATtVELL. 123 

Frequent addresses to my Charles I send, 

And my sad state did to his care commend ; 

But his fair soul, transform'd by that French dame, 

Had lost all sense of honour, justice, fame. 

He in's seraglio like a spinster sits, 

Besieged by w — — s, buffoons, and bastard chits ; 

Lull'd in security, rolling in lust, 

Resigns his crown to angel CarwelVs trust ; 

Her creature, Obsorne, the revenue steak ; 

False, French knave, Anglesey misguides the seals, 

Mac-James the Irish bigots do adore, 

His French and Teague command on sea and shore. 

The Scotch-scalado of our court's two isles, 

False Lauderdale, with ordure all denies. 

Thus the state's night-mared by this hellish rout, 

And no one left these furies to cast out. 

Ah ! Vindex, come and purge the poison' d state ; 

Descend, descend, e'er the cure's desperate. 



Once more, great Queen, thy darling strive to save, 
Snatch him again from scandal and the grave ; 
Present to's thoughts his long-scorn'd Parliament, 
The basis of his throne and government. 
In his deaf ears sound his dead father's name ; 
Perhaps that spell may's erring soul reclaim ; 
Who knows what good effects from thence may spring ? 
'Tis god-like good to save a falling King. 

BRITANNIA. 

Raleigh, no more, for long in vain I've tried 
The Stuart from the tyrant to divide; 
As easily learned virtuosos may 
With the dog's blood his gentle kind convey 



124 ANDREW MATIVELL. 

Into the wolf, and make him guardian turn 
To th* bleating flock, by him so lately torn. 
If this imperial juice once taint his blood, 
'Tis by no potent antidote withstood. 
Tyrants, like leprous Kings, for public weal 
Should be immured, lest the contagion steal 
Over the whole. Th' elect of th' Jessean line 
To this firm law their sceptre did resign : 
And shall this base tyrannic brood invade 
Eternal laws, by God for mankind made ? 
To the serene Venetian state I'll go, 
From her sage mouth famed principles to know, 
With her the prudence of the ancients read, 
To teach my people in their steps to tread ; 
By their great pattern such a state I'll frame, 
Shall eternize a glorious lasting name. 

Till then, my Raleigh, teach our noble youth 
To love sobriety^ and holy truths 
Watch and preside over their tender age, 
Lest court-corruption should their souls engage. 
Teach them how arts and arms, in thy young days, 
Employ' d our youth — not taverns, stews, and plays. 
Tell them the generous scorn their rise does owe 
To flattery, pimping, and a gaudy show. 
Teach them to scorn the Carwells, Portsmouths, Nells, 
The Clevelands, Osbornes, Berties, Lauderdales : 
Poppaea, Tegoline, and Arteria's name, 
All yield to these in lewdness, lust, and fame. 
Make them admire the Talbots, Sydneys, Veres, 
Drake, Cavendish, Blake, men void of slavish feara; 
True sons of glory — pillars of the state, 
On whose fam'd deeds all tongues and writers wait. 
When with fierce ardour their bright souls do burn, 
Back to my dearest country I'll return. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 125 

Tarquin's just judge, and Ccesar's equal peers, 

With them 111 bring to dry my people's tears : 

Publicola with healing hands shall pour 

Balm in their wounds, and shall their life restore 

Greek arts and Koman arms, in her conjoin'd, 

Shall England raise, relieve oppress' d mankind. 

As Jove's great son th' infested globe did free 

From noxious monsters, hell-born tyranny, 

So shall my England, in a holy war, 

In triumph lead chain'd tyrants from afar ; 

Her true Crusado shall at last pull down 

The Turkish crescent, and the Persian sun. 

Freed by thy labours, fortunate, bless' d isle, 

The earth shall rest, the heaven shall on thee smile ; 

And this kind secret for reward shall give, 

No POISON' D TYRANTS ON THY EARTH SHALL LIVE. 



ON COLONEL BLOOD'S ATTEMPT TO STEAL 
THE CROWN.* 

When daring Blood, his rent to have regain'd 
Upon the English diadem distrained ; 
He chose the cassock, circingle, and gown, 
The fittest mask for one that robs the crown ; 

* This daring ruffian was notorious for seizing the person 
of the Duke of Ormond, with an intention to hang him 
at Tyburn, and for stealing the Crown out of the Tower. 
He was nearly successful in both these enterprises. The 
cunning of this fellow was equal to his intrepidity. He 
told the King, by whom he was examined, that he had 
undertaken to kill him ; and that he went for that pur- 
pose to a place in the river where he bathed ; but was 
struck with so profound an awe upon the sight of his 
(naked) Majesty, that his resolution failed him, and he 
entirely laid aside his design : that he belonged to a band 



126 ANDREW MARVELL. 

But his lay-pity underneath prevail'd, 
And whilst he sav'd the keeper's life, he fail'd. 
With the priest's vestment had he but put on 
The prelates' cruelty, the crown had gone. 



ON MILTON'S PARADISE LOST. 

When I beheld the poet blind, yet bold, 
In slender book his vast design unfold, 
Messiah crown'd, God's reconcil'd decree, 
Rebelling angels, the forbidden tree, 
Heav'n, hell, earth, chaos, all ; the argument 
Held me a while misdoubting his intent, 
That he would ruin (for I saw him strong) 
The sacred truths to fable and old song ; 
So Sampson groap'd the temple's posts in spite, 
The world o'erwhelming to revenge his sight. 



of ruffians equally desperate with himself, who had bound 
themselves by the strongest oaths, to revenge the death of 
any of their associates. Upon which he received the royal 
pardon, and a handsome pension. He was no longer 
considered as an impudent criminal, but as a Court fa- 
vourite ; and application was made to the throne, through 
the mediation of Mr. Blood. He died the 24th August, 
1680. Rochester, in his "History of Insipids," notices 
the villain in the following lines : — 



" Blood, that wears treason in his face, 
Villain complete in parson's gown, 

How much is he at court in grace, 
For stealing Ormond and the Crown ! 

Since loyalty does no man good, 

Let's steal the King and outdo Blood." 



ANDREW MAR SHELL. J 27 

Yet, as I read, soon growing less severe, 
I lik'd his project, the success did fear ; 
Thro' that wide field how he his way should find, 
O'er which lame faith leads understanding blind ; 
Lest he'd perplex the things he would explain, 
And what was easy he should render vain. 



Or, if a work so infinite he spanned, 
Jealous I was that some less skilful hand 
(Such as disquiet always what is well, 
And by ill imitating would excel) 
Might hence presume the whole creation's day 
To change in scenes, and show it in a play. 

Pardon me, mighty poet, nor despise 
My causeless, yet not impious, surmise ; 
But I am now convinc'd, and none will dare 
Within thy labours to pretend a share. 
Thou hast not miss'd one thought that could be fit, 
And all that was improper dost omit ; 
So that no room is here for writers left, 
But to detect their ignorance or theft. 

That majesty which thro' thy work doth reign, 
Draws the devout, deterring the profane. 
And things divine thou treat' st of in such state, 
As them preserves, and thee, inviolate. 
At once delight and horror on us seize, 
Thou sing'st with so much gravity and ease : 
And above human flight dost soar aloft, 
With plume so strong, so equal, and so soft : 
The bird nam'd from that paradise you sing 
So never flags, but always keeps on wing. 



128 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Where couldst thou words of such a compass find ? 
Whence furnish such a vast expanse of mind ? 
Just heav'n thee, like Tiresias, to requite,. 
Rewards with prophecy thy loss of sight* 

Well might'st thou scorn thy readers to allure 
With tinkling rhyme, of thy own sense secure ; 
While the Town-Bayes writes all the while and spells, 
And like a pack-horse, tires without his bells* 
Their fancier like our bushy points appear r. 
The poets tag them ; we for fashion wear. 
I too,, transported by the mode> commend, 
And while I meant to praise thee, must offend* 
Thy verse created like thy theme sublime, 
In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme. 

In our selections from the poems, we have 
reserved what are perhaps the four most beau- 
tiful; for thelast Eyes and tears, andThe Nymph 
lamenting for the death of the Faun, are^ecjp-- 
perfect r in these, as in the others quoted, the 
reader will perceive a vein of thought now 
almost obsolete, the metaphysical beauty of the 
first; its shadowy abstractions remind us of 
Cowley, while in the other we have that tinge 
of classical light very peculiar to that age, but 
which is now seldom attempted by our poets. 
The noblest remain behind ; the Bermudas was 
worthy of its subject ; the soul seems to 
sing to the tune and strain, of the creaking 
cordage, and the thundering waves. There is 
a loud and brave chaunt, as of spirits deter- 
mined to defy the elements, and very significant 
of the men it is intended to honour^ — the brave 
pilgrim fathers ; while the Horatian ode on 



ANDREW MARVELL. 129 

Cromwell is one of the finest compositions in 
our language ; and while it is nobly laudatory 
to Cromwell, it is still finer from its generous 
and magnanimous tribute to King Charles. On 
the whole, these poems serve abundantly to 
show, that had Marvell dedicated his powers to 
poetry, he must have stood very high in his 
country^ literature ; as it is, there many 
couplets and verses — many images and thoughts 
which are most worthy of being enshrined 
among the best productions of our language — 
for nervous expression, for beauty, and for 
power. 



EYES AND TEARS. 

How wisely Nature did decree, 
With the same eyes to weep and see ! 
That, having view'd the object vain, 
They might be ready to complain. 
And, shice the self-deluding fight, 
In a false angle takes each height, 
These tears which better measure all, 
Like wat'ry lines and plummets fall. 
Two tears, which sorrow long did weigh, 
Within the scales of either eye, 
And then paid out in equal poise, 
Are the true price of all my joys. 
What in the world most fair appears, 
Yea, even laughter, turns to tears ; 
And all the jewels which we prize, 
Melt in these pendants of the eyes. 
e 2 



130 ANDREW MARVELL. 

I havethrougli e very garden_be en T 
"^Tmongst the red, the white, the green ; 
And yet from all those flow'rs I saw, 
No honey, but these tears could draw. 
So the all-seeing sun each day, 
Distils the world with chymic ray ; 
But finds the essence only showers, 
Which straight in pity back he pours. 
Yet happy they whom grief doth bless, 
That weep the more, and see the less ; 
And, to preserve their sight more true, 
Bathe still their eyes in their own dew. 
So Magdalen in tears more wise 
Dissolv'd those captivating eyes, 
Whose liquid chains could flowing meet, 
To fetter her Redeemer's feet. 
Not full sails hasting loaden home, 
Nor the chaste lady's pregnant womb, 
Nor Cynthia teeming shews so fair, 
As two eyes, swoln with weeping, are. 
The sparkling glance that shoots desire, 
Drench'd in these waves, does lose its fire. 
Yea oft the Thund'rer pity takes, 
And here the hissing lightning slakes. 
The incense was to heaven dear, 
Not as a perfume, but a tear 1 
And stars show lovely in the night, 
But as they seem the tears of light. 
Ope then, mine eyes, your double sluice, 
And practice so your noblest use ; 
For others too can see, or sleep ; 
But only human eyes can weep. 
Now, like two clouds dissolving, drop, 
And at each tear, in distance stop ; 



ANDREW MARVELL* 131 

Now, like two fountains, trickle down : 
Now like two floods o'er-run and drown : 
Thus let your streams o'erflow your springs, 
Till eyes and tears be the same things ; 
And each the other's difference bears ; 
These weeping eyes, those seeing tears, 



BERMUDAS. 

Where the remote Bermudas ride, 
In th' ocean's bosom unespy'd ; 
From a small boat, that row'd along, 
The list'ning winds received this song. 

" What should we do but sing His praise, 
That led us through the wat'ry maze, 
Unto an isle so long unknown, 
And yet far kinder than our own ? 
Where He the huge sea-monsters wracks, 
That lift the deep upon their backs. 
He lands us on a grassy stage, 
Safe from the storms, and prelate's rage, 
He gave us this eternal spring, 
Which here enamels every thing" : 
And sends the fowls to us in care, 
On daily visits thro' the air. 
He hangs in shades the orange bright, 
Like golden lamps in a green night. 
And does in the pomegranates close, 
Jewels more rich than Ormus shows. 
He makes the figs our mouths to meet ; 
And throws the melons at our feet» 



132 ANDREW MARVELL. 

But apples plants of such a price, 
No tree could ever bear them twice. 
With cedars chosen by His hand, 
From Lebanon, He stores the land. 
And makes the hollow seas that roar 
Pro claim the ambergris on shore. 
He cast (of which we rather boast) 
The Gospels pearl upon our coast, 
And in these rocks for us did frame 
A temple, where to sound His name. 
Oh ! let our voice His praise exalt, 
'Till it arrive at heaven's vault ; 
Which thence, perhaps, rebounding, may 
Echo beyond the Mexique bay." 

Thus sung they in the English boat, 
An holy and a cheerful note ; 
And all the way, to guide their chime, 
With falling oars they kept the time. 



THE NYMPH COMPLAINING FOE THE DEATH 
OF HER FAWN. 

The wanton troopers riding by, 
Have shot my fawn, and it will die. 
Ungentle-men ! They cannot thrive 
Who kill'd thee. Thou ne'er didst, alive, 
Them any harm : alas ! nor could 
Thy death yet do them any good. 
I'm sure I never wish'd them ill ; 
Nor do I for all this ; nor will : 
But, if my simple prayers may yet 
Prevail with heaven to forget 



ANDREW MARVELL. 133 

Thy murder, I will join my tears, 
Rather than fail. But, my fears ! 
It cannot die so. Heaven's king 
Keeps register of every thing ; 
And nothing must we use in vain, 
Ev'n beasts should be with justice slain ; 
Else men are made their deodands. 
Though they should wash their guilty hands 
In this warm life-blood, which doth part 
From thine, and wound me to the heart, 
Yet could they not be clean : their stain 
Is dy'd in such a purple grain. 
There is not such another in 
The world* to offer for their sin. 



Inconstant Stlvio, when yet 
I had not found him counterfeit, 
One morning, (I remember well,) 
Ty'd in this silver chain and bell, 
Gave it to me : nay, and I know 
What he said then ; I'm sure I do. 
Said he, " Look how your huntsman here 
Hath taught a fawn to hunt his dear. 1 * 
But Sylvio soon had me beguil'd : 
This waxed tame, while he grew wild ; 
And quite regardless of the smart, 
Left me his fawn, but took his heart 

Thenceforth I set myself to play 
My solitary time away, 
With this : and, very well content, 
Could so mine idle life have spent. 
For it was full of sport ; and light 
Of foot, and heart ; and did invite 



J 34 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Me to its game ; it seem'd to bless 
Itself in me. How could I less 
Than love it ? 0, I cannot be 
Unkind t' a beast that loveth me. 

Had it Iiv'd long, I do not know 
Whether it too might have done so 
As Sylvio did : his gifts might be 
Perhaps as false, or more, than he. 
But I am sure, for ought that I 
Could in so short a time espy, 
Thy love was far more better than 
The love of false and cruel man. 

With sweetest milk and sugar, first 
I it at mine own fingers nurs'd ; 
And as it grew, so every day 
It wax'd more white and sweet than they. 
It had so sweet a breath ! and offc 
I blush/d to see its foot more soft, 
And white, shall I say than my hand I 
Nay, any lady's of the land. 

It is a wond'rous thing, how fleet 
'Twas on those little silver feet. 
With what a pretty skipping grace 
It oft would challenge me the race ; 
And when't had left me far away, 
Twould stay, and run again, and stay. 
For it was nimbler much than hinds ; 
And trod, as if on the Four Winds. 



I_haye a gardenjrf my own, 
But so with roses overgrown, 
And lilies, that you would it guess 
To be a little wilderness ; 



ANDREW MARVELL. 135 

And all the spring-time of the year 

It only loved to be there. 

Among the beds of lilies I 

Have sought it oft, where it should lie ; 

Yet could not, till itself would rise, 

Find it, although before mine eyes. 

Upon the roses it would feed, 

Until its lips ev'n seem'd to bleed ; 

And then to me 'twould boldly trip, 

And print those roses on my lip. 

But all its chief delight was still 

On roses thus itself to fill ; 

And its pure virgin limbs to fold 

In whitest sheets of lilies cold. 

Had it liv'd long, it would have been 

Lilies without — roses within. 



help ! help ! I see it faint, 
And die as calmly as a saint. 
See how it weeps ! The tears do come 
Sad, slowly, dropping like a gum. 
So weeps the wounded balsam, so 
The holy frankincense doth flow. 
The brotherless Heliades 
Melt in such amber tears as these. 



I in a golden phial will 
Keep these two crystal tears, and fill 
It, till it doth overflow with mine — 
Then place it in Diana's shrine. 

Now my sweet fawn is vanish' d to 
Whither the swans and turtles go ; 



136 ANDREW MARVELL. 

In fair Elysium to endure, 

With milk-white lambs, and ermines pure. 

do not run so fast ; for I 

Will but bespeak thy grave, and die. 



First, my unhappy statue shall 
Be cut in marble ; and withal, 
Let it be weeping too ; but there 
Th' engraver sure his art may spare ; 
For I so truly thee bemoan, 
That I shall weep though I be stone, 
Until my tears, still dropping, wear 
My breast, themselves engraving there. 
There at my feet shalt thou be laid, 
Of purest alabaster made ; 
For I would have thine image be 
White as I can, though not as thee. 



AN HORATIAN ODE UPON CROMWELL'S RETURN 
FROM IRELAND. 



The forward youth that would appear, 
Must now forsake his muses dear, — 
Nor in the shadows sing, 
His numbers languishing. 

'Tis time to leave the books in dust, 
And oil the unused armour's rust ; 

Removing from the wall, 

The corslet of the hall. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 137 

So restless, Cromwell could not cease, 
In the inglorious arts of peace, — 

But through adventurous war, 

Urged on his active star. 

And like the three forked lightning, first 
Breaking the clouds where it was nurst ; 

Did through his own side 

His fiery way divide. 

For 'tis all one to courage high, 
The emulous or enemy : 

And w T ith such to enclose, 

Is more than to oppose. 

Then burning thro' the air he went. 
And palaces and temples rent ; 

And Caesar's head at last,. 

Did thro' his laurels blast- 

*Tis madness to resist or blame> 
The face of angry heaven's flame ; 

And if we must speak true, 

Much to the man is due : 

Who from his private gardens, where 
He lived reserved and austere,. 

As if his highest plot, 

To plant the bergamot. 

Could by industrious valour climb, 
To ruin the great work of time ^ 

And cast the kingdom old, 

Into another mould., 



138 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Though, justice against fate complain, 

And plead the ancient rights in vain ; 

But those do hold or break, 

As men are strong or weak. 

What field of all the civil war, 
Where his were not the deepest scar ; 

And Hampton shows what part, 

He had of wiser art : 

Where twining subtle fears with hope, 
He wove a net of such a scope, 

That Charles himself might chase, 
To Care's brooks narrow case. 

That thence the royal actor borne, 
The tragic scaffold might adorn ; 
While round the armed bands, 
Did clap their bloody hands. 

He nothing common did, or mean, 
Upon that memorable scene ; 
But with his keener eye, 
The axe's edge did try. 

Nor call'd the gods with vulgar spight, 
To vindicate his helpless right ; 

But bow'd his comely head, 

Down as upon a bed. 

This was that memorable hour, 
Which first assured the forced power : 

So when they did design, 

The capitol's first line. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 139 

A bleeding head when they begun, 
Did fright the architects to run ; 

And yet in that, the state 

Foresaw its happy fate. 

And now, the Irish are ashamed, 

To see themselves in one year tamed : 

So much one man can do, 

That does both act and know. 

They can confirm his praises best, 
And have, though overcome, confest, 

How good he is, how just, 

And fit for highest trust. 

Nor yet grown stiffer with command, 
But still in the republic's hand, 

How fit he is to sway — 

That can so well obey. 

He to the Commons' feet presents, 
A kingdom for his first year's rents ; 

And what he may, forbears 

His fame to make it theirs. 

And his sword and spoils ungirt, 
To lay them at the public skirt ; 

So when the falcon high, 

Falls heavy from the sky. 

She having kill'd, no more does search, 
But on the next green bough to perch ; 

Where when he first does lure, 

The faulkner has her sure. 



140 ANDREW MARVELL. 

What may not then our isle presume, 
When Victory his crest does plume ? 

What may not others fear, 

If thus he crowns each year ? 

As Caesar, he ere long to Gaul, 
To Italy and Hannibal, — 

And to all states not free, 

Shall climacteric be. 

The Pict no shelter now shall find, 
Within his party-coloured mind ; 

But from this valour sad, 

Shrink underneath his plaid. 

Happy in the tufted brake, 

The English hunter him mistake ; 

Nor lay his hounds in near, 

The Caledonian deer. 

But thou, the war's and Fortune's son, 
March indefatigably on ; 

And for the last effect, 

Still keep the sword erect. 

Beside the force it has to fright, 
The spirits of the shady night ; 

The same arts that did gain, 

A powei*must it maintain. 

We must not close our review of Marvell, 
as a poet, without referring to the dispute still 
unsettled, and which indeed never will be 
settled,— in reference to several of the sweetest 



ANDREW MARVELL. 141 

compositions in our language. The discussion 
has been mooted by Captain Thompson, in his 
edition of MarvelFs works, in the Trinity 
House Archives, of Hull ; he found, among 
the letters of Marvell to the Corporation, many 
of MarvelFs poems ; among others 

" When all thy mercies, oh, my God, 
My rising soul surveys !" 

And, 

" The spacious firmament on high." 

Both of these have long been attributed to 
Addison ; also, William and Margaret, so 
long claimed by Mallet ; all that we can do 
is, to allude to the fact and the opinion. It 
certainly appears probable that Addison and 
Mallet must yield the honour, since they 
appear to have been written anterior to his 
birth. But how did he become acquainted 
with them ? and how came they to be deposited 
in the archives of the Hull Trinity House, 
there is nothing to show us. There is a kind 
of evidence about them, more favourable to 
Marvell than Addison ; but in the doubt in 
which the matter lies, it must rest. It is 
noticeable, however, that the writer of the 
Spectator does not claim these poems, but 
rather introduces them as hints and suggestions. 



142 



CHAPTER V, 



MARVELL, THE POLEMIC AND THE WIT. 

We come now to another view of our author's 
character. The age in which he lived was 
most famous for disputations, and for the 
quarrels of authors. All Europe rung with 
the famous controversy of Milton and Sal- 
masius, and every reader remembers the con- 
test of Sir Robert Filmer, and Algernon 
Sydney. We must give some account of the 
war of pens and of principles maintained by 
Andrew Marvell and Samuel, afterwards Bishop 
Parker. Milton has shown of what our lan- 
guage is capable in ponderous and most stormy 
eloquence and invective. Sydney has argued 
the question of the rights of the people, 
with learning, and dignity, and grace all his 
own. Marvell plays and glances over his 
adversary light, lively, and sharp as polished 
steel, overwhelming him with language in 
which it is hard to say, whether the argument 
is more convincing, or the wit more outrage- 
ously ludicrous. His figures and images fly 
over his pages with the same ease with which 
his language moves, while their unusualness 



ANDREW MA11VELL. 143 

and quaintness, frequently check laughter by 
the startling surprise to find such things in 
such connection and combination. Of this, 
many illustrations shall be given in the follow- 
ing pages. But it may not be amiss to give 
here an outline of the history of Parker, his 
antagonist. The following facts appear both 
in Dod's and Coleridge's history. We know 
not whom to credit for the compilation in a 
life of Marvell. 

Samuel Parker was born at Northampton, 
in the year 1 640. He was the son of John 
Parker, Esq.,* afterwards Serjeant at Law, 
and one of the Barons of the Exchequer, in 
1659. Young Parker was educated among 
the Puritans, at Northampton, from whence 
he was sent to Wadhain College, Oxford, and 
admitted in 1659. Here it is said he led a 
strict and religious life, and entered into a 
weekly society, which met at a house in Haly- 
well, where they fed on thin broth, made of 
oatmeal and water only, for which they were 
commonly called Gruellers. Among these, 
says Marvell, wC it was observed he was wont 
to put more grates than all the rest into his 



* Parker's father was a lawyer, and one of Oliver's most 
submissive committee-men. He wrote a very remarkable 
book in defence of " The Government of the People of 
England.'' It had " a most bieroglyphical title" of several 
emblems; two hands joined, and beneath a sheaf of arrows, 
stuffed about with half a dozen mottoes, " enough," says 
Marvell, "to have supplied the mantlings, and achieve- 
ment of this (godly) family." Au anecdote in the secret 
history of Parker is probably true : "He shortly after- 
wards did inveigh his father s memory, and in his mother's 
presence, before witnesses, for a couple of whining fanatics." 



144 ANDREW MARVELL, 

porridge," and was deemed " one of the pre- 
ciousest young men in the University." These 
mortified saints, it seems, held their chief 
meetings at the House of " Bess Hampton, an 
old and crooked maid, that drove the trade of 
laundry, who being from her youth very much 
given to the godly party, as they called them- 
selves, had frequent meetings, especially for 
those that were her customers/' Such is the 
dry humour of honest Anthony Wood, who 
paints like the Ostade of literary history. 

But the age of sectarism, and thin gruel, 
was losing all its coldness in the sunshine of 
the Restoration ; and this u preciousest young 
man, 1 ' from praying, and caballing against 
Episcopacy, suddenly acquainted the world, 
in one of his dedications, that Dr. Ralph 
Bathurst had rescued him from the chains 
and fetters of an unhappy education, and with- 
out any intermediate apology, from a sullen 
sectarist, turned a flaming highflyer for the 
" supreme dominion" of the church. Parker 
removed to Trinity College, Oxford, where in 
1663, he took the degree of Master of Arts, 
and soon after entering into orders, he resorted 
frequently to London, and became chaplain to 
a nobleman; and displayed his wit in drolleries, 
and reflections on his old friends, the Puritans. 

Marvell admirably describes Parkers jour- 
neys to the Metropolis at the restoration, where 
V he spent a considerable time in creeping into 
all corners, and companies, horoscoping up and 
down concerning the duration of the govern- 
ment " This term, so expressive of his poli- 
tical doubts, is from Judicial Astrology, then 



ANDREW MARVELL. 145 

a prevalent study. " Not considering any 
thing as best, but as most lasting, and most 
profitable ; and after having many times cast a 
figure, he at last satisfied himself that the 
Episcopal government would endure as long as 
this King lived, and from thenceforwards cast 
about to find the highway to preferment. To 
do this, he daily enlarged not only his conver- 
sation, but his conscience ; and was made free 
of some of the town vices ; imagining, like 
Muleasses, King of Tunis, (for I take witness 
that on all occasions I treat him rather above 
his quality than otherwise,) that by hiding 
himself among the onions, he should escape 
being traced by his perfumes/' The narrative 
proceeds with a curious detail of all his syco- 
phantic attempts at seducing useful patrons, 
among whom was the Archbishop of Canter- 
bury. Then began " those pernicious books," 
says Marvel), " in which he first makes all 
that he will, to be law, and then whatsoever is 
law, to be divinity." 

It is the after-conduct of Parker that throws 
light on this rapid change. On speculative 
points any man may be suddenly converted ; 
for these may depend on facts or arguments, 
which might never have occurred to him be- 
fore. But when we observe this " preciousest 
Grueller" clothed in purple ; when we watch 
the weathercock chopping with the wind, so 
pliant to move, and so stiff when fixed, and 
equally hardy in the most opposite measures, 
become a favourite with James II., and a 
furious advocate for arbitrary government : 
when we see him railing at, and menacing, 

H 



146 ANDREW MARVELL. 

those among whom he had committed as many 
extravagances as any of them ; can we hesitate 
to decide, that this bold, haughty, and ambitious 
man, was one of those : who having neither 
religion, nor morality for casting a weight, can 
easily fly off to opposite extremes ; and whe- 
ther a Puritan, or a Bishop, we must place his 
zeal to the same side of his religious ledger, 
that of the profits of barter. 

In 1665, he was elected Fellow of the Koyal 
Society, and published, about that time, some 
Physico-Theologieal Essays, which he dedi- 
cated to Dr. Sheldon, Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, who became his patron, and in 1667, 
made him his Chaplain. Being thus put into 
the road to preferment, he left Oxford, and 
resided at Lambeth, under the eye of his 
patron, who, in 1670, collated him to the 
Archdeaconry of Canterbury, and, in the same 
year, he had the degree of Doctor of Divinity 
conferred upon him, at Cambridge. In 1672, 
he was installed into one of the prebends of 
Canterbury ; and collated also by the Arch- 
bishop, about the same time, to the rectories of 
Ickham and Ohartham, in Kent. 

As Dr. Parker distinguished himself by his 
zeal in support of every exorbitant claim, both 
of the Church and the Crown, he maintained 
an unreserved obsequiousness to the Court, 
during the reign of Charles II. : and upon the 
accession of his brother to the throne, he con- 
tinued in the same servile compliance, and it 
was not long before he reaped the fruits of it in 
the Bishopric of Oxford, to which he was nomi- 
nated by King James II., in 1686. He was 



ANBHEW MARVELL. i47 

also made a Privy Counsellor, and constituted, 
in an illegal manner, by a royal mandamus, 
President of Magdalen College, in Oxford, 
which was justly and severely censured. 

Parker's design to obtain court-favour was so 
strong, that he appeared willing to sacrifice his 
religion to it ; for when King James was endea- 
vouring to establish Popery in England, he wrote 
in favour of Transubstantiation, and the worship 
of saints and images. The Papists, it is cer- 
tain, made sure of him as a proselyte. In a 
letter from a Jesuit of Liege to a Jesuit of 
Fribourg, dated Feb. 2, 1688, is this pas- 
sage : — " The Bishop of Oxford seems to be a 
great favourer of the Catholic faith : he proposed 
in council, whether it was not expedient that 
one college at least, in Oxford, should be al- 
lowed the Catholics, that they might not be 
forced to be at so much charge, in going be- 
yond sea to study. But it is not yet known 
what answer was made. The same Bishop 
having invited two of our Noblemen (*. e, 
Roman Catholics,) with others of the Nobility, 
to a feast, drank the King's health to a certain 
heretical Lord there, wishing his Majesty good 
success in all his undertakings ; adding, also, 
that the religion of the Protestants in England 
did not seem to him a better condition than 
Buda was before it was taken, and that they 
were next to atheists that defended that faith."" 

In another letter, from Father Edward Petre, 
a Jesuit, and Privy Counsellor to King James, 
directed to Father La Chaise, and dated 
February 9, the same year, are these words : — 
" The Bishop of Oxford has not yet declared 



148 ANDREW MARVELL. 

himself openly : the great obstacle is his wife, 
whom he cannot rid himself of; his design 
being to continue Bishop, and only change 
communion ; as it is not doubted but the King 
will permit, and our holy Father confirm; 
though I do not see how he can be further use- 
ful to us in the religion he is in, because he is 
suspected, and of no esteem among the heretics of 
the English church ; nor do I see that the ex- 
ample of his conversion is like to draw many 
others after him, because he declared himself so 
suddenly. If he had believed my counsel, which 
was to temporize for some longer time, he 
would have done better, but it is his zeal that 
hurried him on/' These two letters were first 

f>rinted in a collection of tracts, in 4to., pub- 
ished in 1689. 

Parker observed so little decency in his com- 
pliance with every measure of the Court, how- 
ever unjustifiable, and his servility was so gross 
and open, that he became quite contemptible, 
and his influence, and authority in his diocese, 
were so insignificant, that when he assembled 
his clergy, and desired them to subscribe an ad- 
dress of thanks to the King, for his declaration 
of liberty of conscience (which was issued 
.merely to favour the Catholics,) they rejected it 
with such unanimity, that he got but one single 
clergyman to concur with him in it. The last 
effort he made to serve the court, was his pub- 
lishing " Reasons for abrogating the Test.'* 
This Book, Bishop Burnett observes, raised 
such a disgust against Parker, "even in those 
that had been formerly but too much influenced 
by him, which, when he perceived, he sunk 



ANDREW MARVELL. 149 

under it. ' At length, finding himself despised 
by all good men, the trouble of mind occasioned 
thereby, threw him into a distemper, of which 
he died unlamented, at the President's lodgings, 
in Magdalen College, on the 20th March, 
1687. He was the author of several books 
both in English and Latin ; and, among 
others, a " History of his own Times." He 
left a son, who was a man of learning, and pub- 
lished several works, but he would never take 
the oaths after the Revolution." 

This gentleman has been called a clergyman, 
but he was never in orders. Mr. Parker ap- 
pears to have been a very different character to 
Iris father, and was highly esteemed by all who 
knew him. He died July 14, 1730. One of 
his sons, a bookseller, at Oxford, died at an ad- 
vanced age, not many years ago. Dr. Johnson 
mentions him by the familiar name of Sack 
Parker, with great kindness.* Kennett, Bishop 
of Peterborough, once had a female asking 
charity of him, as the daughter of a Bishop. 
He thought her an impostor, but on enquiry, 
he ascertained, that she was really the daughter 
of Parker, Bishop of Oxford. 

In our days, the production of Parker may 
be regarded as a real curiosity ; most of ouf 
readers cannot be aware of the flagitious impu- 
dence, — the atrocious, and outrageous attacks 
upon all justice — all virtue of life, or senti- 
ment, which he dared to print. It is curious, as 
illustrating the character of a party in England, 
and that party the most powerful, — it is dread- 

* See Boswell's Life of Johiason. 



150 ANDREW MARVELL. 

ful to think that a dignitary, in a Christian 
church ever in seriousness of spirit — if such a 
phrase, — wrote thefollowing horrid sentences: — 



" When men's consciences are so squeamish, or so 
humoursome, as that they will rise against the customs and 
injunctions of the church they live in, she must scourge 
them into order, and chastise them, not so much for their 
fond persuasion, as for their troublesome peevishness.'* 

'■' Tender consciences, instead of being complyed with, 
must be restrained with more peremptory and unyielding 
rigour, than naked and unsanctified villany." Hence, 
"if governors would consider seriously into what exorbi- 
tances, peevish, and untoward principles about religion, 
naturally improve themselves, they could not but perceive 
it to be as much their concernment to punish them with 
the severest inflictions, as any, whatseover principles of re- 
bellion in the state." 

"Oh," saith he, "we shall have to be accounted with, 
at the day of judgment ! Ah, sweet day ! when these 
people of God shall once for all, to their unspeakable com- 
fort and support, wreak their eternal vengeance upon their 
reprobate enemies !" 

" Tenderness and indulgence to such men (dissenters) 
were to nourish vipers in our own bowels, and the most 
sottish neglect of our own quiet, and security, — 'and we 
should deserve to perish with the dishonour of Sarda- 
napalus." 

" *Tis better to err with authority, than to be in the 
right against it, in all doubtful, disputable cases, because 
the great duty of obedience outweighs the danger of a 
little error, (and little it is, if it be disputable.) My obe- 
dience will hallow, or at least, excuse my action." 

" Princes have power to bind their subjects to that re- 



ANDREW MARVELL. 15J 

ligion they apprehend most advantageous to public peace, 
and tranquillity. 

u So easy is it, for men to deserve to be punished for 
their consciences, — that there is no nation in the world, in 
which, were government rightly understood, and duly 
managed, mistakes and abuses of religion would not supply 
the galiie3 with vastly greater numbers than villainy." 

"Of all villains, the well meaning zealot is the most 
danger ous." 

" The fanatic party in country towns, ariaeth not (to 
speak within compass,) above the proportion of one to 
twenty. Whilst the public peace and settlement is so un- 
luckily defeated by quarrels and mutinies of religion, — 
to erect and create new trading combinations, is only to 
build so many nests of faction and sedition ; for it is no - 
torious that there is not any sort of people so inclinable to 
seditious practices, as the trading part of a nation." 

" Princes may, with less hazard,give liberty to men's vices 
and debaucheries, than their consciences." 

"'Tis absolutely necessary to the peace and nappines3 
of kingdoms, that there be set up a more severe govern- 
ment over men's consciences and religious persuasions, 
than over their vices and immoralities." 

Well might Marvell say : — 

" To write against him (Parker) is the most odious task 
I ever undertook, for he has looked to me all the while 
like the cruelty of a living dissection ; which, however it 
may tend to public instruction, and though I have picked 
out the most noxious creature to be anatomized, yet doth 
this scarce exeuse the offensiveness of the scent, and 
fouling of my fingers ; therefore I will here break off 
abruptly, leaving many a vein not laid open, and many a 
passage not searched into. But if I have undergone the 



152 ANDREW MARVELL. 

drudgery of the most loathsome part already, which is 
his personal character, I will not defraud myself of what 
is more truly pleasant, the conflict with (if it may be so 
called) his reason" 

Mr. Henry Rogers, in his very able essay 
upon Marvell, reprinted from the " Edinburgh 
Review," says, — " Happily, the state of things 
which generated such men, (as Parker,) has 
long since passed away." True, we see but 
few such men now, we say few, because we 
fancy that there are still some of the Parker 
school remaining among us. Nay, in the 
second volume of the "Essays," of Mr. Rogers, 
the occasion of the review on the right of 
private judgment, exhibits to us a journal of 
our own day, pleading for the laying a tax 
upon Opinion, and subjecting Error to the 
drilling and supervision of eertain ecclesiastical 
magistrates. Men, like Parker, show to us 
the capacities of fallen humanity. Renegades, 
without a conscience, will usually be just such 
men ; they will generally be characterised by 
severity to the opinions of other men, in pro- 
portion to the lightness with which matters of 
opinion affect themselves, and the ease with 
which they, for worldly considerations, can 
throw them aside. 

We have seen the origin of Marvell's work, 
as a polemic. It was in the publication, by 
Parker, of a book called " Ecclesiastical Polity," 
a very different book, indeed, to that of the 
judicious Hooker. We have seen his style and 
spirit — his attacks upon men of all persuasions 
and sects. 



ANDREW MARVJlLL. 153 

To meet this attack was imperiously neces- 
sary. Dr. Owen applied to Baxter to under- 
take the defence of Nonconformity; but he 
declined the task. The Doctor therefore re- 
plied to Parker, and acquitted himself with 
great credit in his " Truth and Innocepce 
Vindicated." Parker was an ambitious priest, 
and looked for advancement. He cared not 
at what expense he wrote himself into a 
Bishopriek. The substance of his polity was 
preached at Lambeth, and printed by order of 
Sheldon, a man in every respect of similar 
sentiments and spirit. 

Next year Parker published " A Defence 
and Continuation of the Ecclesiastical Polity 
against Dr. Owen ;'' and in the following year 
a still further attack on him, in a preface which 
he wrote to a posthumous work of Bishop 
Bramhall. These works abounded in the 
lowest abuse of Owen. He calls him the 
" Great Bell-weather of disturbance and sedi- 
tion. " u The viper," he says, " is so swelled 
with venom, that it must either burst or spit 
its poison/'* Although Owen appeared no 



* Parker's want of probity appears in nothing more 
clear than in his slanders upon that "Prince of Divines," 
Dr. Owen. In the " History of his Own Times," pages 
852, 353, Parker thus writes of that great and good man. 
"John Owen published a work bearing this title, 'An 
Apology for Liberty of Conscience/ In this book, 
undertaking the patronage of his party, he is not ashamed 
to praise the great loyalty of the Independents to the 
King, though he himself was dipped in the blood of King 
Charles I. He scribbles with rough and disagreeable 
language, with no weight of reason, and with an unheard 
of licentiousness in lying. He was from his youth a most 
indefatigable author and advocate of Rebellion. Among 

2h 



154 ANDREW MARVELL. 

more in this controversy, it by no means ter- 
minated here. The vain-glorious clergyman 
was doomed to receive a severe scourging from 
a Layman, which must have made him writhe 
in every nerve. Charles and his court were 
passionately devoted to wit and raillery. They 
gloried in a Butler, whose burlesque poetry ex- 
posed the Puritans to contempt, and broke the 
edge of public censure against themselves. 
The other party, however, could boast of Mar- 
vell ; both a wit and a poet, whose ironical 
muse often lashed the follies and vices of the 
court. Marvell answered the conceited clergy- 
man ; and in his " Rehearsal Transprosed," (a 
title facetiously adopted from Bayes in " The 
Rehearsal Transposed" of the Duke of Buck- 
ingham) turned all the laughers against him. 
There are times and subjects which require the 
use of ridicule ; and it will sometimes succeed, 
if judiciously managed, when graver arguments 
fail. 

One of the legitimate ends of Satire, and 
one of the proud triumphs of Genius, is to un- 
maskihe false zealot, to beat the haughty spirit 
that is treading down all, and if it cannot teach 

the Regicides themselves, lie was the bitterest enemy of 
the Royal Blood, who vehemently exhorted to the com- 
mission of that most execrable wickedness ; and in a ser- 
mon before the regicides, praised and celebrated it when it 
was done ; and as a prophet of God, he admonished and 
commanded them, to perfect on the posterity, what (under 
the Divine influence) they had begun in the father ; for it 
was pleasing to God, not only that the government of the 
whole of family the Stuarts should be utterly destroyed, but 
that no one should hereafter be suffered to reignin England. 
But I need say no more of this famous rebel now, since 
I may perhaps write the whole history of this wicked man." 



ANDREW MAItVliLL. 155 

modesty, and raise a blush, at least to inflict 
terror and silence. It is then the Satirist gives 
honour to the place of the executioner. 

"As one whose whip of steel can, with a lash, 
Imprint the characters of shame so deep, 
Even in the brazen forehead of proud sin, 
That not eternity shall wear it out." 

The controversy between Marvell and 
Parker is a striking example of the efficient 
powers of genius, in first humbling, and then 
annihilating, an unprincipled bravo, who has 
placed himself at the head of a faction. Mar- 
vell was a master in all the arts of ridicule; 
and his inexhaustible spirit only required some 
permanent subject, to rival the causticity of 
Swift, whose style, in neatness and vivacity, 
seems to have been modelled from it ; for, in 
his " Tale of a Tub*'' be says, " we still read 
Marvell's answer to Parker with pleasure^ 
though the book it answers be sunk long ago/' 
But Marvell placed the oblation of genius on a 
temporary altar, and the sacrifice sunk with it ; 
he wrote to the times, and with the times his 
writings have, in some measure, passed away. 
He left behind him no poem of permanent in- 
terest ; and although his satirical poetry is 
fraught with sparkling and poignant wit, yet 
the subjects were chiefly personal and temporary, 
and not like the more elaborate work of Butler, 
identified with the national history, manners, 
and opinions. 

Such are the vigour and fertility of Marvell's 
writings, that our old chronicler of literary his- 



156 ANDREW MARVKLL. 

tory, Anthony Wood, considers him as the 
founder, " in the then newly refined art (though 
much in fashion almost ever since) of sporting 
and geering buffoonery," ) * and the crabbed 
humourist describes "this pen combat as briskly 
managed on both sides ; a jerking, flirting way 
of writing; entertaining the reader, by seeing 
two such right cocks of the game so keenly en- 
gaged with sharp and dangerous weapons/' 
Bishop Burnett calls Marvell " the liveliest 
droll of the age; who writ in a burlesque strain, 
but with so peculiar and entertaining a conduct, 
that, from the king to the tradesmen, his books 
were read with great pleasure." Charles II. 
was a more polished judge than either of those 
uncouth critics, and to the credit of his impar- 
tiality (for that witty Monarch and his disso- 
lute Court were never spared by Marvell,) he 
deemed him the best prose Satirist of the age. 
But Marvell had other qualities than the freest 
humour, and the finest wit, in this " newly re- 
fined art," which seems to have escaped these 



* Wit and raillery had been such strangers during the 
period of the Commonwealth, that honest Anthony, whose 
prejudices did not run in favour of Marvell, not only con- 
siders him as the " restorer of this newly -refined art," but 
as one " hugely" versed in it ; and acknowledges all its 
efficacy in the complete discomfiture of his haughty rival. 
Besides this, a small booh of controversy, like Marvell's, 
was another novelty — " the aureoli libelli" as one fondly 
calls his precious books, were in the wretched taste of the 
times, rhapsodies in folio. The reader has doubtless heard 
of Carlyl's "Commentary on Job," consisting of 2400 
folio pages ! in small type. One just remark has been 
made on the utility of this work, — " that it is a very 
sufficient exercise for the virtue of patience, which it was 
chiefly intended to inculcate." 



ANDREW MARVELL. 157 

grave critics — a vehemence of solemn reproof and 
an eloquence of invective, that awes one with 
the spirit of the modern Junius, and may give 
some notion of that more ancient Satirist, whose 
writings are said so completely to have an- 
swered their design, that, after perusal, their 
unhappy object hanged himself upon the first 
tree ; and, in the present case, though the de- 
linquent did not lay violent hands on himself, 
he did what, for an author, may be considered 
as desperate a course, — " withdraw from the 
town, and cease writing for some years." 

This quarrel originated in a preface written 
by Parker, in which he poured contempt and 
abuse on his old companions the Nonconform- 
ists. It was then that Marvell clipped his 
wings with his " Rehearsal Transprosed ;" and 
his wit and humour were finely contrasted with 
Parker's extravagance — set off in his usual de- 
clamatory style — of which Marvell wittily com- 
pares " the volume and circumference of the 
periods, like too great a line ; which weakens 
the defence, and requires too many men to 
make it good/' The tilt was now opened ; and 
Parkers knights attempted to grasp the sharp 
$nd polished weapon of Marvell, and to turn it 
against himself; but in this kind of literary 
warfare, they were greatly inferior to their 
gifted antagonist,* Parker, in fact, replied to 

* As a specimen of what old Anthony calls ** a jerking, 
flirting way of writing," we transcribe the titles of the 
answers. As Marvell had nicknamed Parker, Bayes ; the 
quaint humour of one, entitled his reply, " Rosemary and 
fiayes ;" another, " The Transproser Rehearsed, or the 
Fifth Act of Mr. Bayes'Play;" another, ''Gregory Father 
Greybeard with his Vizard off." This was the very Bvrilemy 



158 ANDREW MARVELL, 

Marvell anonymously, by " A Reproof of the 
4 Rehearsal Transprosed ;' with a mild exhorta- 
tion to the magistrate, to crush with the secular 
arm, the pestilent wit, the servant of Cromwell, 
and the friend of Milton." But this was not 
all : an anonymous letter was despatched to 
Marvell, short enough to have been an epigram, 
could Parker have written one : but it was 
more in character, for it contained a threat of 
assassination, and concluded with these words: — 
u If thou darest to print any lie, or libel, against 
Dr. Parker, by the eternal God, I will cut 
thy throat. 1 ' 

In Marvell's two volumes of wit and broad 
humour, and of the most galling invective, 
one part flows so much into another, that the 
volatile spirit would be injured by an analytical 
process. We shall, however, given, few quota- 
tions from this soil, in which the rich vegetation 
breaks out in every part.*f 

<{ The press hath owed him (Parker) a shame a long time, 
and is but now beginning to pay off the debt. The y>res& 

Fair of wit ! But Marvell, with malicious ingenuity, sees 
Parker in them all — they so much resembled their master I 
" There were no less," says he, "than six scaramouches to- 
gether upon the stage, all of them of the same gravity and 
behaviour, the same tone, and the same habit, that it was 
impossible to discern which was the true author of * The 
Ecclesiastical Polity/ I believe he imitated the wisdom of 
some other princes, who have sometimes been persuaded 
by their servants to disguise several others in the regal 
garb, that the enemy might not know in the battle whom 
to single.' ' 

f That indefatigable collector of literary anecdotes and 
curiosities, Mr. D'Israeli, in his " Quarrels of Authors," 
has an interesting chapter on the controversy between* 
Marvell and Parker, of which we have availed ourselves 



ANDREW MAItVELL. 159 

(that villanous engine) invented much, about the same time 
with the Reformation, hath done more mischief to the dis- 
cipline of our Church than the doctrine can make amends 
for. It was a happy time, when all learning was in manu" 
script, and some little officer, like our author, did keep the 
keys of the library. When the clergy needed no more 
knowledge than to read the liturgy, and the laity no more 
clerkship than to save them from hanging. But now, since 
printing came into the world, such is the michief, that a 
man cannot write a book, but presently he is answered. 
Could the press but at once be conjured to obey only an 
imprimatur, our author might not disdaine, perhaps, to be 
one of its most zealous patrons. There have been wayes 
found out to banish ministers, to find not only the people, 
but even the grounds and fields where they assembled, in 
conventicles ; but no art yet could prevent these seditious 
meetings of letters. Two or three brawny fellows in a 
corner, with meer ink, and elbow grease, do more harm 
than a hundred systematical divines, with their sweaty 
preaching. And, what is a strange thing, the very spunges, 
which one would think should rather deface and blot out 
the whole book, and were anciently used for that purpose, 
are become now the instruments to make them legible. 
Their ugly printing letters, which look but like so many 
rotten tooth-drawers ; and yet these rascally operators 
of the press have got a trick to fasten them again in 
a few minutes, that they grow as fir ai a set, and as biting 
and talkative as ever. 0, printing ! how hast thou dis- 
turbed the peace of mankind ! that lead, when moulded 
nto bvllets, is not so mortal as when formed into letters I 
There was a mistake, sure, in the story of Cadmus; and 
the serpent's teeth which he sowed, were nothing else but 
the letters which he invented. The first essay that was 
made towards this art, was in single characters upon iron, 
wherewith, of old, they stigmatized slaves, and remarkable 



160 ANDREW MARVELL. 

offenders ; and it was of good use, sometimes, to brand a 
schismatic ; but a bulky Dutchman diverted it quite from 
its first institution, and contriving those innumerable syn- 
tagmes of alphabets, hath pestered the world ever since, with 
the gross bodies of their German divinity. One would 
have thought in reason, that a Dutchman might have con- 
tented himself only with the wine-press." 

Parker was both author and licenser of his 
own work on "Ecclesiastical Polity/'* and it- 
appears he got the license for printing Marvell's 
first ''Rehearsal" recalled. The Church ap- 
peared in danger when the doctor discovered 
he was so furiously attacked* Marvell sar- 
castically rallies him on his dual capacity. 

" He is such an At-all of so many capacities, that he 
would excommunicate any man who should have presumed 
to intermeddle with any one of his provinces. Has he be«n 
an Author ? he too is the IAcencer. Has he been a Father? 
he will stand also for Godfather. Had he acted Pyramus 
he would have been Moonshine too, and the Hole in the 
Wall. That first author of " Ecclesiastical Polity," Nero, 
was of the same temper. He could not be contented with 
the Roman Empire, unless he were too his own Precentor ; 
and lamented only the detriment that mankind must sus- 
tain at his death, in losing so excellent ajidler." 

The Satirist describes Parker's arrogance for 
those whom he calls the " vulgar," and whom 
he defies as " a rout of wolves and tigers, apes 

* The title will convey some idea of its intolerant prin- 
ciples ; — " A discourse of Ecclesiastical Polity ; wherein the 
Authority of the Civil magistrate over the Consciences of 
Subjects, in matters of external Religion, is asserted." 



ANDREW MARVELL. 161 

and buffoons ;" yet his personal fears are oddly- 
contrasted with his self-importance : " If he 
chance but to sneeze, he prays that the founda- 
tions of the earth be not shaken. Ever since 
he crept up to be but the weathercock of a 
steeple, he trembles and creaks at every puff of 
wind that blows about him, as if the Church of 
England w T ere falling." Parker boasted, in 
certain philosophical " Tentarnina" or Essays 
of his, that he had confuted the atheists : 
Marvell declares, "if he hath reduced any 
atheists by his book, he can only pretend to have 
converted them (as in the old Florentine wars) 
by mere tiring them out with perfect weariness. 
Marvell, when he lays by his playful hu- 
mour, and fertile fancy, for more solemn remon- 
strances, assumes a loftier tone, and a severity 
of invective, from which, indeed, Parker never 
recovered. Accused by Parker of aiming to 
degrade the clerical character, Marvell declares 
his veneration for that holy vocation, and would 
reflect even on the failings of the men, from 
whom so much is expected, with indulgent 
reverence.* 

" Their virtues are to be celebrated with all encourage- 
ment, and if their vices be not notoriously palpable, let 
the eye, as it defends its organ, so conceal the object by con- 
nivance." But there are cases when even to write satiri- 
cally against a clergyman may be not only excusable, but 
necessary. " The man who gets into the church by the 
belfry, or the window, ought never to be born in the pul- 
pit ; the man who illustrates his own corrupt doctrines, 
with as ill a conversation, and adorns the lasciviousness of 

* Hartley Coleridge. 



162 ANDREW MARVELL. 

hi3 life, with an equal petulancy of style and language :" 
in such a concurrence of misdemeanors, what is to b« 
done ? The example and the consequence so pernicious ! 
which could not be " if our great pastors but exercise the 
wisdom of common shepherds, by parting with one, to 
stop the infection of the whole flock, when his rottenness 
grows notorious. Or if our clergy would but use the 
instinct of other creatures, and chase the blown deer out 
of their herd, such mischiefs might easily be remedied. 
!t is in this case that I think a clergyman is laid open to 
the pen of any one, that knows how to manage it ; and 
that every person who has either wit, learning, or sobriety, 
is licensed— if debauched, to curb him ; if erroneous, to 
catechise him ; and if foul-mouthed and biting, to muzzle 
him. Such an one would never have come into the church, 
but to take sanctuary ; wheresoever men shall find the 
footing of so wanton a satyr out of his own bound, 
ihe neighbourhood ought, notwithstanding all his pre- 
tended capering divinity, to hunt him through the woods, 
with hounds and horse, home to his harbour.'' 



Towards the end of the reign of Charles II., 
the bench of Bishops ran slavishly into all the 
measures of the Court, which extorted from 
Mr. Locke the memorable expression, " that 
they were the dead weight of the House." 
Marvel], whom Echard designates a " pesti- 
lent wit," thus alludes to them : — 



" 'Tis a very just observation that the English people 
are slow at inventing, but excellent in the art of im- 
proving a discovery ; and I cannot recollect any thing, 
in which this is more verify' d, than with relation to 
Episcopacy ; which, though originally of foreign growth ; 



ANDREW MARVELL. 163 

never arrived to its compleat maturity, till transplanted 
into this hospitable country. 

64 In the early ages of Christianity, a Bishopric was really 
a laborious station, expos'd to numberless dangers, and 
fiery trials ; insomuch that many of the Clergy then 
declin'd it, in good earnest ; and had too much reason to 
say, Nolo Episcopari : but amongst us the burtheA is so 
happily alleviated, that a double-chin'd Prelate hath, now 
little more to do than to loll at ease in his chariot, or to 
snore in his stall. ISTo wonder therefore that whenever 
any man is complimented with the tempting offer of a 
mitre, though the old self-denying form is still religiously 
observed, he, like a coy, but prudent damsel, cries no — ■ 
and takes it. 

" A primitive Bishop, notwithstanding the difficulties 
and discouragements attending the study of the Scriptures, 
sperit most part of his time in poring over his Bible ; 
whereas, the politer moderns find it more profitable, as 
well as pleasant, to amuse themselves with the fables of 
Phadrus, or the entertaining comedies of Terence. 

" It is (1 Tim. hi. 2.) one of the characteristics of an apos- 
tolical Bishop, that he is the husband of one wife ; which 
several of the old musty fathers interpret, that he must hi 
wedded to one diocese for life. Accordingly, in the times 
of ignorance and superstition, when translations were 
deemed scandalous, a Bishop would as soon have deserted 
his religion as his flock, and would have resigned his life 
much rather than his See. — But a modish Prelate, of our 
days, is no sooner thus allegorically married, than (like 
other fine gentlemen) he grows weary of his wife, with 
whom perhaps he never so much as cohabited, and long3 
to get rid of her. Then, taking hold of the first oppor- 
tunity, he gives her a bill of divorce, kicks her off, and 
swoops her away for another, who brings a richer dowry 
for her maintenance. In token of this episcopal xvedlock, 



164 ANDREW MARVELL. 

the usual ceremony of a ring was antiently made use of in 
the consecration of Bishops ; and, to this day, the arms of 
the diocese are quarter' d, in their escutcheons, with their 
own —if they have any. 

" St. Paul, the first Bishop of the Gentile converts, tes- 
tifies of himself, that he became all things to all men, that 
by all means he might save some. (1 Cor. ix.) Our 
modern Prelates, become all things to all men, that by all 
means they may get something, as well as save. 

" The ecclesiastical historians inform us, that in days of 
yore, Bishops were so unmannerly, that they frequently 
thwarted the civil powers, and disconcerted their measures. 
But, behold how good and pleasant a thing it is, when 
Church and State, like loving brethren, go cheek by jowl, 
and dwell together in unity! (Psal. cxxxiii. 1.) "We had 
a glorious instance of this, in the later* times, and though 
their zeal happened to fail of success, it shows how ready 
they were, upon all occasions, to serve the court. At 
present I can ascribe the happy situation of our affairs to 
nothing more effectual than the complaisant deportment 
of that venerable order to the interests of our ministers, 
and their almost unanimous concurrence with their stu- 
pendous negotiations. 

" The primitive Bishops were daily occupy'd in attend- 
ing at the altar, and other fatiguing duties of their function. 
Our more political Prelates are experimentally appriz'd 
that it turns to much better account to dance attendance 
at a great man's levee, and leave the drudgery of prayer 
and preaching to their half-starv'd curates. 

" The Patriarchs of the primitive Church were but slen- 

* He means the reign of King Charles I. ; when most of 
the bench suffered themselves to be governed by a proud 
and insolent Bishop of London, (Laud) who worked him- 
aelf, by those means, into 'he see of Canthrbury, and was 
one of the chief causes, according to Lord Clarendon, of all 
the miseries that ensued. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 165 

derly supported, by the voluntary contributions of Chris- 
tian proselytes. Those of our own, besides the sums 
drain'd out of the inferior clergy, and the various profits 
arising from their spiritual courts, by which the vices of 
the laity become marvellously beneficial to the hierarchy ; 
are not only possess'd of ample temporal lordships, but 
are also enabled, by the disposition of several ecclesiastical 
preferments, to make a handsome provision for a numerous 
progeny of sons, daughters, nieces, &c. The former 
thought themselves oblig'd, out of their small revenues, to 
be extensive in their acts of liberality and beneficence ; 
and even to impoverish themselves, for the relief of dis- 
tressed strangers. The latter have so conscientious a 
regard for that enonomical precept, which injoins them 
especially to provide for those of their own household, or 
family, that they seldom bestow their charity abroad. 

" As the advancement of a primitive priest to the epis- 
copal dignity was entirely founded upon his own intrinsic 
merit, abstracted from any worldly consideration ; so, in 
promoting others, he had respect to nothing but learning 
and diligence in the discharge of the ministerial office, 
together with an exemplary purity and integrity of life. 
He countenanc'd no cringers, sycophants, or informers ; 
gave no encouragement to bribery, smock-simony, or any 
of those mean arts, by which too many of the clergy now- 
a-days, if not grossly misrepresented, endeavour to re- 
commend themselves to the patronage of the Eight 
Reverends.* 

" The antient Bishops, in imitation of John the Eaptist, 
would boldly rebuke the vices of courtiers and prinGes. 



* Mr. Nelson says, in his " Life of Bishop Bull," that a 
certain Clergyman applied to him for preferment, and had 
the impudence to offer him a purse of gold. The good 
Bishop saw it, and trembled ; and immediately sent away 
this abandoned prostitute with great indignation. 



166 ANDREW MA&VELL. 

Ambrose, a prelate of the fourth century, excluded the 
Eraperor Theodosius from the eucharist ; nor could he be 
persuaded to absolve and re-admit him to church com- 
munion, till he had sate upon the stool of repentance for 
eight months, and testify'd the deepest contrition for 
revenging the extrajudicial proceedings against Butheri- 
cus, a great officer at court, who had been assaulted by 
popular fury. 

" Lastly, the autients entertain' d such an insuperable 
antipathy to pluralities, that no motive could influence 
them to accept of any appendage to a Bishopric. — The 
wiser moderns, in conjunction with their Bishoprics com- 
monly hold either a Deanery, or a comfortable Prebend, 
together with a good fat Parsonage, and perhaps half a 
dozen sinecures, in commendam. 

" The Greeks may have excell'd us in the art of rheto- 
ric, or poetry, but we have fairly outstripp'd them in 
refining upon Bishopcraft. A modern hath as much the 
advantage of an antient Prelate, as riding in an easy coach 
is preferable to trudging through the dirt on foot. Who 
therefore but a stiff-rumped disciple of Jack Calvin will 
fee so absurd as to deny that he who desired the office of 
an English, nay, of a Welsh, Bishop, desireth a good 
thing." 

Marvell, in noticing Parker and his coadju- 
tors, blends with a ludicrous description, great 
fancy. 

" The whole Posse Archidiaconatus was raised to repress 
me ; and great riding there was, and sending post every 
way, to pick out the ablest Ecclesiastical Droles to prepare 
an answer. Never was such a hubbub made about a sorry 
book. One flattered himself with being at least a surro- 
gate ; another was so modest as to set up with being but 



ANDREW MARVELL, 167 

a Paritw; while the moat generous hoped only to be 
graciously smiled upon at a good dinner ; but the more 
huagry starvelings generally looked upon it as an imme- 
diate call to a benefice ; and he that could but write an 
answer, whatever it were, took it for the most dexterous, 
cheap, and legal way of simony. As is usual on these 
occasions, there arose no small competition among the 
candidates. 

It seems all the body had not impudence 
enough ; some possessed too nice consciences, 
and others could not afford an extraordinary 
expanse of wit for the occasion. It was then 
that 

" The author of the ' Ecclesiastical Polity* altered his 
lodgings to a Calumny-Office, and kept open chambers for 
all comers, that he might be supplied himself, or supply 
others, as there was occasion. But the information came 
in so slenderly, that he was glad to make use of any thing 
rather than sit out ; and there was at last nothing so slight, 
but it grew material ; nothing so false, but he resolved it 
should go for truth ; and what it wanted in matter, he 
would make out with invention and artifice. So that he, 
and his remaining comrades, seemed to have set up a glass- 
house, the model of which he had observed from the height 
of his window in the neighbourhood ; and the art he had 
been initiated into ever since the manufacture of soap-bub- 
bles, he improved by degrees to the mystery of making 
glass-drops, and thence, in running leaps, mounted by these 
virtues to be a Fellow of the Koyal Society, Doctor of 
Divinity, Parson, Prebend, and Archdeacon. The furnace 
was so hot of itself, that there needed no coals, much less 
any one to blow them. One burnt the weed, another cal- 
cined the flint, a third melted clown that mixture ; but he 
himself fashioned all with his breath, and polished with 



168 ANDREW MARVELL. 

his style, till, out of a mere jelly of sand and ashes, he 
had furnished a whole cupboard of things, so brittle and 
incoherent, that the least touch would break them in 
pieces, and so transparent, that every man might see 
through them." 

Parker had accused Marvell with having 
served Cromwell, and being the friend of Mil- 
ton, then living, at such a moment when such 
an accusation, not only rendered a man odious, 
but put his life in danger. Marvell, who now 
perceived that Milton, whom he never looked 
upon but with reverential awe, was likely to 
be drawn into his quarrel, touches on this sub- 
ject with great delicacy and tenderness, but not 
with diminished energy against his malignant 
adversary, who he shows to have been an im- 
pertinent intruder into Milton's hous% where 
he had first seen him. He cautiously alluded 
to our English Homer by his initials ; at that 
time, the very name of Milton would have 
tainted the page !* 



* The friendship between Milton and Marvell is an in- 
teresting fact in the history of two of the noblest characters 
this country has produced. The encomiastic verses prefixed 
to "Paradise Lost," prove not only the admiration of 
Marvell for the " mighty poet," but that, long before the 
Earl of Dorset or Dry den, Marvell had discovered and 
fully appreciated the incomparable Epic. Edward Phillips, 
the nephew of Milton states, that "Marvell, with other 
friends, frequently visited the Poet when secreted on 
account of the threats of Government. " It is not impro- 
bable that the humour of Marvell contrived the premature 
and mock funeral of Milton, which is reported, for a time, 
to have duped his enemies into a belief of his real death ; 
and to Marvell' s friendship the world is probably indebted 
for the great poems which were afterwards published. 



169 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE NO POPERY CRY, IN MARVELL S TIME. 

" To consider what likelihood, or how much 
danger there is, of the return of Popery into 
this nation." This was declared by Parker to 
be the object of his book. The very first word 
in it is, — " For ray part I know none.'' Very 
well considered. Why then, Mr. Bayes, I 
must tell you, that if I had printed a book or 
a preface upon the argument, I shoul ! have 
thought myself, at least, a fool for my labour. 
The next considerer is mine enemy ; T mean he 
is an enemy to the state, whoever shall foment 
such discourses without any likelihood or danger. 
Yet, Mr Bayes, you know I have for a good 
while had no great opinion of your integrity. 
I doubt not you prevaricate a little with some- 
body, for I suppose you cannot be ignorant that 
some of your superiors of your robe did, upon 
the publishing of that declaration, give the 
word, and deliver orders through their ecclesi- 
astical camp, to beat up the pulpit drums 
against Popery. Nay, even so much that there 
was care taken too, for arming the " poor 
readers, that though they came short of preachers 
in point of efficacy, yet they might be enabled 
i 



J 70 ANDREW MARVELL. 

to do something in point of common security/' 
So that though for so many years, those your 
superiors had forgot that there was any such 
thing in the nation as a Popish recusant, though 
a polemical and controversial divinity had for 
long been hung up in the halls, like the rusty 
obsolete armour of our ancestors, for monuments 
of antiquity, and for derision rather than ser- 
vice ; till all on a sudden, (as if the 15th of 
March had been the 5th of November,) happy 
was he that could climb up first to get down one 
of the old cuirasses, or a habergeon that had 
been worn in the days of Elizabeth, Great 
variety there was — and heavy too. Some 
clapped it on all rusty as it was, others fell to 

oiling and furbishing their armour, some 

in their barrels, others spat in their pans to 
scour them. Here you might see one put on 
his helmet the wrong way ; there one buckled 
on a back instead of a breast. Some by 
mistake, catch eel up a Socinian-Arminian 
argument, and some a Popish to fight a Popish. 
Here a dwarf lost in the accoutrements of a giant, 
there a Don Quixote in an equipage of differing 
pieces, and of several parishes. Never was 
such incongruity and nonconformity in their 
furniture. One ran to borrow a sword from 
Calvin ; this man for a musquet from Beza ; 
that for a bandeleers from Reckerman. But 
when they came to seek match, and bullet, 
and powder, there was none to be had. The 
fanatics had bought it all up, and made them 
pay for it most unconscionably, and through 
the nose. And no less sport was it to see their 
leaders. Few could tell how to give the word 



ANDREW MARVELL. 171 

of command, nor understood to drill a company; 
they were as unexpert as their soldiers were 
awkward, and the whole was as pleasant a 
spectacle, as the exercising of the train bands 
in shire, 

Nero and Caligula. — Parker has said, "Tis 
better to submit to the unreasonable imposi- 
tions of Nero, or Caligula, than to hazard the 
dissolution of the State; what he means here, by 
dissolution of the State, he might have done 
well to have expressed ; but what the unreason- 
able impositions are, cannot be understood, 
otherwise, than either in matters of religion, or 
of propriety, and how both those emperors ac- 
quitted themselves on those two accounts, ap- 
pears in their history. For as to Nero, beside 
his personal vices, which can scarce be imitated, 
or paralleled, but by Caligula, I will but suc- 
cinctly men ion how he behaved himself to 
the public, in the course of his government. 
If men bequeathed nothing to him by their 
last wills and testaments, in token of their 
gratitude to the prince, he confiscated the 
whole estate, and fined all lawyers, whatsover, 
by whose advice the w 7 ills bad been drawn. 
He decreed, that though there was but one in- 
former, it should suffice to convict men of 
treason, either for words or actions ; whenso- 
ever he bestowed an office, he did it with these 
instructions : " You understand what I have 
need of, and therefore, let us make it our busi- 
ness, that no man may have any thing he can call 
his own." Beside so many particular instances 
of savage cruelty, he designed to cut off the 



172 ANDREW MAltVELL. 

heads of all the governors of provinces. To 
poison the whole senate at a dinner. To burn 
the city, and at the same time, to turn out 
wild beasts among the people, to terrify them 
from quenching the fire. A blazing star ap- 
pearing, he resolved to turn the omen from his 
own head, by the massacre of all the nobility, 
and the most considerable persons in Rome. 
He did cause the city of Rome to be set on fire, 
and so carelessly, that divers of his officers 
being taken with fire and flax in their hands, 
and in the very act, yet, were let go, for fear of 
offending him ; and some houses not being so 
easily burnt, he took care to have them beaten 
down with engines. And though, it was 
manifest, how it was designed, and acted, he 
devised the crime of all this upon the innocent 
Christians. He sacrilegiously took the donatives 
from the temples, and melted down the very 
images of the gods to make money. He con- 
temned all religions, and particularly, isreckoned 
to have been the first persecutor of Christianity. 
He affirmed publicly, that u none of his prede- 
cessors had known their own power;" the very 
same words in a manner, and spoke in the same 
sense, as those of our author, " that governors 
have not been thoroughly instructed in the na- 
ture, and extent of their power/' and the other, 
u that no nation hath rightly understood, and 
duly managed government, because they have 
not chained their Nonconformists to the oar, 
and condemned them to the galleys.*" The 
conclusion of this tragedy is common ; how 
Nero was by the senate proclaimed an enemy 
to the state, and sentenced to be punished after 



ANDREW MA&VELL. 173 

the ancient manner ; that is, to be stripped 
naked, and his head held up with a fork, till 
he was whipped unto death ; but this, by 
another death he prevented. "This, I suppose, 
is one of his uncontrollable magistrates ; these 
his unreasonable impositions, and this your dis- 
solution of the government ; and you think 
that it was better that this Nero had still 
reigned, than that Gralba had succeeded. I 
would all of you, that are of that mind had 
such governors ; and thus much, concerning 
Nero. 

" But now as to Caligula and his imposi- 
tions : — what disposition he was of, he mani- 
fested, by his wishing that all the people of 
Rome had but one neck. Beside that, he used 
to lament the unhappiness of his time, because 
it was not signalised by any public calamity 
(as if there needed any other calamity but his 
government, and he himself had not supplied 
the defect of any misfortune). c Whereas/ 
said he, c the reign of Augustus was felicitated 
by the defeat of Varus and his legions, as that 
of Tiberius was memorable for the fall of the 
amphitheatre at Fideaae (in the ruins of which 
twenty thousand men perished) ; but my un- 
fortunate prosperity will leave me in danger of 
being inglorious after death, and forgotten." " 
But he took good and effectual care to the 
contrary : he was often heard to say, "that he 
would reduce things to such a condition that 
the lawyers should not have anything to say or 
do, but what he thought just and equitable," 
and he was as good as his word. The things 
may be seen, in particular in his history ; his 



174 ANDREW MARVELL, 

whole reign having been a pandect of rapine 
and tyranny, and his rule by which he pro- 
ceeded, "that he might do what he pleased 
with whom he pleased." As to the sacred 
rights and precedents, take one instance. 

The priest being ready to offer sacrifice at 
the altar, he took upon himself, according to 
the unalterable dictates of natural reason, to 
exercise the priesthood in person ; and having 
vested himself as in the power, — so too in the 
sacerdotal habit, he took up the mallet, and 
feigning to knock the beast down, instead 
thereof, struck down the officer who stood by 
with the knife ; which should, methinJcs, he suf- 
ficient caution to Churchmen hereafter how they 
trust the civil magistrate with exercising the 
tools of the priesthood. But this is nothing 
in respect of what follows. 

He commanded that the Statue of Jupiter 
Olympus, amongmany others, should be brought 
from Greece, and their heads taken off, to 
place his in the room of them. He seated 
himself often in the middle, betwixt Castor 
and Pollux, to be adored by the people. He 
built a temple to himself, and appointed priests 
to his own divinity: and even then there 
wanted not ambitious men, who, by favours, 
aspired to that office, or purchased it by simony 
upon any ecclesiastical vacancy. The sacrifices 
appointed for his own worship, were pheasants, 
peacocks, and all the other delicate fowls, and 
of greatest rarity. He took upon him the in- 
signias of all the gods : — the lion from Her- 
cules : the caps from the Castors ; the ivy and 
thrysis from Liber ; the Caduceus from Mer« 



ANDREW MARVELL. 175 

cury; the sword, helmet, and buckler, from 
Mars ; the crown, bow, arrows, and graces 
from Apollo. He made love to the Moon, 
and pretended to her embraces. But more 
than this : he commanded that his image 
should be set up in the Temple at Jerusalem, 
and that the Temple should be dedicated only 
to him, and he there to be worshipped under 
the name of u The New Jupiter." He 
caused his statues, moreover, to be placed in 
the Jews' synagogues, to be there adored ; in- 
somuch, that the great Grot i us does most accu- 
rately deduce and expound 2 Thessalonians, 
chap ii., ver. 3 — 4, concerning him, although 
differing from other interpreters; and that St. 
Paul had ventured to call him the son of Per- 
dition, that is worthy to die in the most 
miserable manner, (as he did afterwards) and 
the adversary, — that is, the enemy of God, — 
and that his sitting as God, in the temple of 
God, was to be meant of his command to erect 
his image there, though it w 7 ere not effected, 
yet however seeing he did his best to have it 
done. And this is your other magistrate 
" who understood the nature and extent of his 
pow T er." What a pity it is that you did not 
live in that fortunate age, when desert was so 
well rewarded and understood, when prefer- 
ments were so current'! Certainly, one of 
your heels and mettle would have arrived to 
be something more than an Archdeacon. 

Church Contentions. — And indeed, that 
first contention raised by Augustine abou* the 
introducing of the Romish ceremonies, which 



176 ANDREW MARVELL. 

could not be quenched but by the blood and 
slaughter of the innocent Britons, hath been 
continued even to our later times with the like 
mischief and murder of Christians. For when 
once by those glorious ceremonies they forsook 
the pure simplicity of the primitive Church, 
they did not much trouble themselves about 
holiness of life, the preaching of the Gospel^ 
the efficacy and comfort of the Holy Spirit ; 
but they fell every day into new squabbles 
about new fangled ceremonies, added by every 
Pope, who reckoned no man worthy of so high 
a degree but one who had invented somewhat, 
I will not say ceremonies, but monstrous, un- 
heard of, and before unpractised ; and they 
filled the schools and the pulpits with their 
fables and brawling of such matters. For the 
first beauty of the Church had more of sim- 
plicity and plainness ; and was neither adorned 
with splendid vestments, nor magnificent struc- 
tures, nor shined with gold, silver, and precious 
stones ; but with the entire and inward worship 
of God as it was by Christ himself prescribed, 
although it may be lawful to use these external 
things, so they do not lead the mind astray 
from that more inward and entire worship of 
God ; by those curious and crabbed rites it 
degenerated from that ancient and right Evan- 
gelical symplicity. But that multitude of rites 
in the Romish Church had un measurably in- 
creased in the times of that great Augustine, 
the Bishop of Hippo, insomuch that he com- 
plained that the condition of Christians, as to 
rites and ceremonies, was harder than that of 
the Jews ; who, although they did not discern 



ANDREW MARVELL, 177 

the time of their liberty, yet were only sub- 
jected to legal burthens instituted by God him- 
self, not to humane presumptions, for they 
used fewer ceremonies in the worship of God 
than Christians. Who, if he could have fore- 
seen how great a heap of them was afterwards 
piled up, and added by the several Popes, he 
himself doubtless would have restrained it 
within Christian measure, having already per- 
ceived this growing evil in the Church. For 
we see that even yet the Church is not free 
from that contention ; but men otherwise 
learned and pious, do still cut and slash about 
vestments and such kind of trifles, rather in a 
swash buckler and hectoring way than either 
like philosophers or Christians. 

Church Ceremonies. — He would persuade 
princes that there cannot be a pin pulled out 
of the Church, but the State immediately totters. 
This is strange. And yet I have seen many a 
pin pulled out on occasion, and yet not so much 
as the Church hath wagged. It is true, indeed, 
and we have had sad experiments of it, that 
some clergymen have been so opiniastre, that 
they have rather exposed the state to ruin, than 
they would part with a pin ; I will not say 
out of their Church, but out of their sleeve. 
There is nothing more natural, than for the 
ivy to be of opinion, that the oak cannot stand 
without its support ; or, seeing, we are got into 
ivy, that the Church cannot hold up longer 
than it underprops the walls ; whereas, it is a 
sneaking, insinuating imp, scarce better than 
bind-weed, that sucks the tree dry, and 
i 2 



178 ANDREW MARVELL. 

moulders the building where it catches. But, 
what pray, is this pin in Pallas's buckler? 
" Why, it is some ceremony or other, that is in- 
different in its own nature, that hath no antece- 
dent necessity, but only as commanded (Parker) 
that signifies nothing in itself, but what the 
commander pleases ; that even by the Church 
that commands it, is declared to have nothing 
of religion in it ; and that is in itself, of no 
great moment, or consequence, only it is abso- 
lutely necessary that governors should enjoy it 
to avoid the evils that would follow, if it were 
not determined. '' 

The Venom of Parker. — You see, Mr. 
Bayes, that I, too, have improved my wit with 
reading the Gazette. Were you of that fel- 
low's diet, here about town, that epicurises upon 
burning coals, drinks healths in scalding brim- 
stone, scraunches the glasses for his dessert, and 
draws his breath through glowing tobacco 
pipes, nay, to say a thing yet greater, had you 
never tasted other sustenance than the focus of 
burning glasses, you could not show more flame 
than you do always, upon that subject ; and 
yet, one would think, that from the little sports, 
with your comfortable importance after supper, 
you should have learnt when 1:0 came into 
play, to love your love with a y, because he is 
judicious ; though you hate your son with a J y 
because he is jealous ; and then to love your 
love, with an 0, because he is oraculous; though 
you hate your love with an 0, because he is 
obscure. Is it not strange, that in those most 
benign moments of a man's life, when the stars 



ANDREW MARVELL. 179 

smile, the birds sing, the winds whisper, the 
fountains warble, the trees blossom, and uni- 
versal nature seems to invite itself to the bridal ; 
when the lion pulls in his claws, and the 
aspic lays by its poison, and all the most noxious 
creatures grow amorously innocent, that even 
then, Mr. Bayes alone should not be able to 
refrain his malignity ! As you love yourself, 
madam, let him not come near you ; he hath 
been fed all his life with vipers instead of 
lampreys, and scorpions for cray fish ; and if 
at any time he eat chickens, they have been 
crambed by spiders, till he hath envenomed his 
whole substance. It cannot be a vulgar fur- 
nace that hath chafed so cool a Salamander. 

" Is it not a great pity to see a man, in the 
flower of his age, and the vigour of his studies, 
to fall into such a distraction ; that his head 
runs upon nothing but Roman Empire and 
ecclesiastical polity ? This happens by his 
growing too early acquainted with Don Quixote, 
and reading the Bible too ; so that the first 
impressions being most strong, and mixing with 
the last as more novel, have made such a 
medley in his brain-pan, that he is become a 
mad priest, which of all the sorts is most 
incurable." 

" But how perfect soever a man may have 
been in any science, yet without continual 
practice, he will find a sensible decay of his 
faculty. Hence, also, and upon the same 
natural ground, it is the wisdom of cats to 
whet their claws against the chairs and hang- 
ings, in meditation of the next rat they are to 
encounter. And 1 am confidant, that Mr. 



J 80 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Bayes, by this way, hath brought himself into 
so good a railing case, that pick what letter you 
will out of the alphabet, he is able to write 
an epistle upon it of 723 pages." 

" When a man is once possessed with this 
fanatic kind of spirit, he imagines, if a shoulder 
do but itch, that the world has galled it with 
leaning on it so long, and therefore he wisely 
shrugs to remove the globe to the other. If 
he chance to sneeze, he salutes himself, and 
courteously prays that the foundations of the 
earth be not shaken. And even so, the author 
of the ' Ecclesiastical Polity,' ever since he 
crept up to be the weather-cock of a steeple, 
he trembles, and creaks, at every puff of wind 
that blows him about, as if the Church of 
England were falling, and the State tottered." 

Marvell justifies his severity towards Parker 
most ludicrously, by saying, a No man needs 
letters of marque against any one that is a 
pirate of other men's credit. I remember, 
within our own time, one Simons, who robbed 
always upon the Bricolle, that is to say, never 
interrupted the passengers, but fell upon the 
thieves themselves, after, like Sir John Fall- 
staff, they were gorged with a booty ; and by 
this way so ingenious, that it was scarce crimi- 
nal. He lived secure and unmolested all his 
days, with the reputation of a judge, rather 
than a high way man.' * 

" You appeal to governors themselves, to 
judge whether it does not concern them, with 
as much vigilance and severity to prevent their 
rise, (sects) or suppress their growth, as to 
punish any of the foulest crimes of immorality. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 181 

,r Fis something like the story of Gondomar, 
this ; who, from the example of a mother that 
whipped her girl beforehand, lest she should 
break the pitcher, argued that Sir Walter 
Raleigh's head should have been cut off before 
he went to Guinea. Indeed, it is the very 
wisdom of Herod, who, lest there should be a 
king born among them, massacred all the 
children at Bethlehem. So they must be 
prevented or suppressed." 



182 



CHAPTER VII. 



EXTRACTS FROM MARVELL S FAMILIAR 
EPISTLES. 

The extracts already presented from MarvelFs 
communications to Hull, only show his diligence 
as a statesman, and his attention to the interests 
of his constituents. Now we will present a 
few extracts from those epistles, in which he 
could with more freedom unfold his soul. In 
the edition of his works, published by Captain 
Thompson, no dates are given ; they are mostly 
addressed to William Ramsden, Esq., who is 
familiarly spoken to as " Dear Will ;" he was 
a great Hull merchant and adventurer in trade. 

" I have writ to you twice at Bordeaux. I received one 
from you on the 1st. of March. To satisfy your curiosity 
of our affairs, the Lord Lauderdale, the King's Commis- 
sioner, from the Parliament of Scotland, returned hither 
some few days before our sitting down, the 14th. of Feb- 
ruary. He had passed, there, (through the weakness of 
the Presbyterian and Episcopal parties,) an Act, giving 
the King absolute power to dispose of all things in re- 
ligious matters ; and another Act, for settling a militia of 






ANDREW MAttVELL. 183 

twenty thousand foot and horse, proportionable to march 
into England, Ireland, or any part of the King's dominions, 
wherever his person, power, authority, or greatness was 
concerned ; and a third, empowering his Majesty to name 
Commissioners of Scotland, to treat 'with others of Eng- 
land, on the Union of the two nations : for which service 
he was received with extraordinary favour by the 
King, and introduced into the Cabinet Council, and 
is ripe for further honours at a due season. By other 
parties, these affairs were discoursed of, according to their 
several interests ; and many talked that he deserved a 
Halter, rather than a Garter, and were meditating how, 
(he not being an English Peer,) they might impeach him 
in Parliament. 

" Now for the affairs of Ireland.. About the same time, 
the King had resolved to recall the Lord Roberts back. 
His friends were representing him daily to his Majesty, 
on all occasions, in the worst character ; and he himself 
tired out with continued checks and countermands, (hence 
in matters which he thought were agreed to him before he 
went,) wrote a short letter to the King, desiring to be 
dismissed from all employment whatever, which should 
be his last request. The King took him at his word, and 
ordered the Lord Barclay, a man unthought of, to go Lord 
Lieutenant, which he does as soon as we rise ; and then 
the other returns to tell his tale here, and to retire into 
the country, and will, as is thought, relinquish the Privy 
Seal. You know that we have voted the King, before 
Christmas, four hundred thousand pounds, and no more ; 
and enquiring severely into ill management ; and being 
ready to adjourn ourselves till February, his Majesty, for- 
tified by some undertakers of the meanest of our House, 
threw up all as nothing, and prorogued us from the 1st. 
of December till the 14th. of February. All that interval 
there was great and numerous caballing among the cour- 



184 ANDREW MARVELL. 

tiers. The King, also, all the while, examined at Council, 
the reports from the Commissioners of Accounts, where 
they were continually discountenanced, and treated rather 
as offenders than judges. In this posture we met, and 
the King being exceedingly necessitous for money spoke 
to us stilo minaci et imperatorio, and told us the incon- 
veniences, which would fall on the nation, by want of a 
supply, should not lie at his door ; that we must not re- 
vive any discord between the Lords and us, that he himself 
had examined the accounts and found every penny to have 
been employed in the war, — and he recommended the 
Scotch Union. The Garroway party appeared with the 
usual vigour, but the country gentlemen appeared not in 
their true number the first day ; so, for want of voices, 
the first blow was against them. When we began tfc talk 
of the Lords, the King sent for us alone, and recommended 
a rasure of all proceedings. The same thing you know, 
that we proposed at first ; we presently ordered it and 
went to tell him the same day, and to thank him. 

"At coming down, (a pretty ridiculous thing,) Sir 
Thomas Clifford carried the Speaker and the Mace and 
all members there into the King's cellar, to drink his health. 
The King sent to the Lords more peremptorily, and they 
with much grumbling agreed to the rasure. When the 
Commissioners of Accounts came before us, sometimes we 
heard them pro forma, but all falls to the dirt. The ter- 
rible Bill against conventicles is sent up to the Lords ; 
and we and the Lords, as to the Scotch business, have 
desired the King to name English Commissioners to treat, 
but nothing they do be valid, but on a report to Parlia- 
ment. We are now as we think within a week of rising. 
They are making mighty alterations in the Conventicle 
Bill, (which as we sent up in the quintescense of arbitrary 
malice) and sit whole days, and yet proceed but by inches, 
and will at the end probably fix a Scotch clause of the 



ANDREW MAItVELL. 185 

King's power in externals. So the fate of the Bill is tin- 
certain, but must probably pass, being the price of money. 
The King told some eminent citizens, who applied to him 
against it, that they must address themselves to the Houses, 
that he must not disoblige his friends, and that if it had 
been in the power of their friends he had gone without 
money. There is a Bill in the Lords to encourage people 
to buy all the King's fee-farm rents ; so he is resolved once 
more to have money enough in his pocket, and live on the 
common for the future. The great Bill began in the 
Lords, and which 'makes more ado than any act ever in 
this Parliament did, is for enabling Lord Boss, long since 
divorced in the spiritual court, and his children declared 
illegitimate by act of Parliament again. Anglesea and 
Ashley who study and know their interests as well as 
any gentlemen at court, and whose sons have married two 
sisters of Ross, inheretrixes if he have no issue, yet they 
also drive on the Bill with the greatest vigour. The King 
is for the Bill ; the Duke of York, and all the Papist 
Lords, and Bishops, except Cosins, Reynolds and Wilkins, 
are against it. They sat all Thursday last without once 
rising, till almost ten at night, in most solemn and memo- 
rable debate, whether it should be read the second time or 
thrown out. At last, at the question, there were forty 
two persons and six proxies against it ; and forty-one 
persons and fifteen proxies for it. If it had not gone for 
it, the Lord Arlington had a power in his pocket from the 
King, to have nulled the proxies, if it had been to the 
purpose. It was read a second time yesterday ; and on a 
long debate whether it should be committed, it went for 
the Bill, in twelve odds, by persons and proxies. The 
Duke of York, the Bishops, and the rest of the parties, 
have entered their protests, on the first day's debates 
against it. Is not this fine work ? This Bill must come 
down to us. It is my opinion that Lauderdale talks to 



186 ANDREW MARVELL. 

the King at one ear, of Monmouth ; and Buckingham, of 
a new Queen. It is also my opinion, that the King was 
never, since his coming in, {nay all things considered, no 
King since the Conquest) so absolutely powerful at Home, 
as he is at this present ; nor any Parliament, or places so 
certainly and constantly supplied with men of the same 
temper. In such a conjuncture, dear Will, what probabi- 
lity is there of my doing any thing to the purpose ? The 
King would needs take the Duke of Albemarle out of his 
son's hand to bury him at his own charges. It is almost 
three months, and yet he lies in the dark unburied, and 
no talk of him. He left twelve thousand pounds a year, 
and near two hundred thousand pounds in money. His 
wife died nearly twenty days after him ; and laid in state, 
and was buried at her son's expense, in Queen Elizsdbeth's 
Chapel. And now, 

" Disce, puer virtutem exine ^Erumque laborem 
" Fortunam ex aliis. 

"March, 21, 1670," 



" Dearest Will, 
" I wrote to you two letters, and payed for them at the 
post-house here, at Westminster, to which I have had no 

answer — perhaps they miscarried To proceed. The 

same day my letter bore date, there was an extraordinary 
thing done. The King, about ten o'clock, took boat, with 
Lauderdale only, and two ordinary attendants, and rowed 
awhile as towards the bridge, but soon turned back to the 
Parliament Stairs, and so went up into the House of 
Lords, and took his seat. Almost all of them were 
amazed, but all seemed so ; and the Duke of York, espe- 
cially, was very much surprised. Being sat, he told them 



ANDREW MARVRLL. 187 

it was a privilege he claimed from his ancestors to be pre- 
sent at their deliberations : that therefore they should not, 
for his coming, interrupt their debates, but proceed and 
be covered. They did so. It is true that this has been 
done long ago, but it is now so old, and so disused, 
that at any other but so bewitch' d a time as this, it would 
have been looked on as an high usurpation, and breach of 
privilege. He indeed sat still, for the most part, and in- 
terposed very little, — sometimes a word or two. But the 
most discerning opinion was, that he did herein as he 
rowed : for, having had his face first to the Conventicle 
Bill, he turned short to Lord Bosses. So that indeed it is 
credible, the King, (in prospect of diminishing the Duke of 
York's influence in the Lords' House, in this or any future 
matter,) resolved, (and wisely enough at present,) to weigh 
up and lighten the Duke's efficacy, by coming himself in 
person. After three or four days' continuance, the Lords 
were very well used in the King's presence, and sent the 
Lord Steward and the Lord Chamberlain to wait upon 
him as an House, when they might thank him for the 
extraordinary honour he did them. The hour was ap- 
pointed then, and they thanked him, and he took it well. 
So this matter, of such importance on all great occasions, 
seems rivetted to us for the future, and to all posterity. 
Now the Lord Rosses' Bill came in order to another 
debate, and the King present. Nevertheless the debate 
lasted an entire day ; and it passed by very few voices. 
The King has ever since continued his session among 
them, and says it is better than going to a Play. In this 
Session the Lords sent down to us a proviso for the King, 
that would have restored him to all civil and ecclesiastical 
prerogatives which his ancestors had enjoyed at any time 
since the Conquest. There was never so compendious a 
piece of absolute, universal tyranny. But the Commons 
made them ashamed of it, and retrenched it. The Par- 



188 ANDREW MARVELL. 

liament was never so embarrassed beyond recovery. We 
are all venal cowards, except some few. What plots of 
State will go on, this interval, I know not. There is a 
new set of Justices of Peace framing throughout the whole 
kingdom. The governing cabal, since Rosses' business, 
are Buckingham, Lauderdale, Ashley, Orrery, and Trevor. 
Not but the other cabal, too, have seemingly sometimes 
their turn. Madame, our King's sister, (during the King 
of France's progress in Flanders,) is to come as far as Can- 
terbury. There will, doubtless, be family councils then. 
Some talk of a French Queen to be then invented for our 
King. Some talk of a sister of Denmark ; others, of a 
good, virtuous Protestant, here at home. The King dis- 
avows it : yet he has said in public, he knew not why a 
woman may not be divorced for barrenness, as a man for 
impotency." 

"TO WILLIAM RAMSDEN, ESQ. 

" Dear Will, 
" I need not tell you I am always thinking of you. All 
that has happened, which is remarkable, since I wrote, 
is as follows : The Lieutenancy of London, chiefly Sterlin, 
the Mayor, and Sir J. Robinson, alarmed the King conti- 
nually with the Conventicles there. So the King sent them 
strict and large powers. The Duke of York every Sun- 
day would come over thence to look to the peace. To say 
truth, they met in numerous open assemblys, without any 
dread of government. But the train bands in the city, 
and soldiery in Southwark and suburbs, harassed and 
abused them continually ; they wounded many, and killed 
some Quakers especially while they took all patiently. 
Hence arose things of great remark. The Lieutenancy, 
having got orders to their mind, pick out Hays and Jekill, 
the innocentest of the whole party, to shew their power 



ANDREW MARVELL. 189 

on. They offer them illegal bonds of five thousand pounds 
a man, which if they would not enter into, they must go 
to prison. So they were committed, and at last (but it is 
a very long story) got free. Some friends engaged for 
them. The other was the tryal of Pen and Mead, Quakers, 
at the Old Baily. The jury not finding them guilty, as the 
Recorder and Mayor would have had them, they were 
kept without meat or drink some three days, till almost 
starved, but would not alter their verdict ; so fined and 
imprisoned. There is a book out which relates all the 
passages, which were very pertinent, of the prisoners, but 
prodigiously barbarous by the Mayor and Recorder. The 
Recorder, among the rest, commended the Spanish Inquisi- 
tion, saving it would never be well till we had something like 
it. The King had occasion for sixty thousand pounds. Sent 
to borrow it of the city. Sterlin, Robinson and all the 
rest of that faction, were at it many a week, and could not 
get above ten thousand. The fanatics, under persecution, 
served his Majesty. The other party, both in court and 
city, would have prevented it. But the King protested 
money would be acceptable. So the city patched up out of 
the chamber and other ways, twenty thousand pounds. 
The fanatics, of all sorts, forty thousand. The King, 
though against many of his council, would have the Parlia- 
ment sit this twenty-fourth of October. He, and the 
Keeper spoke of nothing but to have money. Some one 
million three hundred thousand pounds, to pay off the debt3 
at interest; and eight hundred thousand for a brave navy 
next spring. Both speeches forbid to be printed, for the 
King said very little, and the Keeper, it was thought, too 
much in his politic simple discourse of foreign affairs. The 
House was thin and obsequious. They voted at first they 
would supply him, according to his occasions, Nemine, as 
it was remarked, contradicente ; but few affirmatives, 
rather a silence as of men ashamed and unwilling. Sir R. 



190 ANDREW MAItVELL. 

Howard, Seymour, Temple, Car, and Hollis, openly took 
leave of their former party, and fell to head the King's 
business. There is like to be a terrible Act of Conventicles. 
The Prince of Orange here is much made of. The King 
owes him a great deal of mony. The paper is full. 

" I am your's, &c." 
"Nov. 28, 1670." 



" TO WILLIAM RAMSDEN, ESQ. 
"Dear Will, 

"Affairs begin to alter, and men talk of a peace with 
Holland, and taking them into our protection ; and it is 
my opinion it will be before Michaelmas, for some reasons 
not fit to write. We cannot have a peace with France and 
Holland both. The Dutch are now brought very low; 
but Amsterdam, and some other provinces, are resolved to 
stand out to the last. De-wit is stabbed, and dead of his 
wounds. It was at twelve a clock at night, the 11th of this 
month, as he came from the council at the Hague. Four 
men wounded him with their swords. But his own 
letter next morning to the States says nothing appeared 
mortal. The whole Province of Utrecht is yielded up. 
No man con conceive the coudition of the State of Holland, 
in this j uncture, unless he can at the same time conceive 
an earthquake, an hurricane, and the deluge. France is 
potent and subtle. Here have been several fires of late. 
One at St. Catharine's, which burned about six score or 
two hundred houses, and some seven or eight ships. 
Another in Bishopsgate-street. Another in Crichet Fryars. 
Another in Southwark ; and some elsewhere. You may 
be sure all the old talk is hereupon revived. There was 
the other day, though not on this occasion, a severe pro- 
clamation issued out against all who shall vent false news, 



ANDREW MARVELL. 191 

or discourse ill-concerning affairs of state. So that in writ- 
ing to you I run the risque of making a breach in the 
commandment. 



" Yours, &c." 



"Jime, 1672." 



" TO WILLIAM RAMSDEN*, ESQ. 

"Dear Sir, 
" I have now before me yours of the 17th of June, with 
the inclosed paper of 17th of May, to which I owed you a 
quicker return. Being resolved now to sequester myself 
one whole day at Highgate, I shall write four whole sides 
(if my spirit will hold out) in answer to your kind letter, 
and to atone for my so long unaffected silence." 

i( And now, Will, I have cast it so, that I can give you 
an account of the business of Parliament last sitting. If it 
should seem to come too late, it is but imagining yourself in 
the East Indies, and it could not have come sooner. Nor 
is there any philosophical difference betwixt the ignorance 
or knowledge of these publick matters. The Treasurer, 
Lauderdale, and I should have said the Duke of York, 
had, as they generally have, the great stroke in our 
counsels. It seemed necessary for the King's affairs, who 
always, but now more, wants money, the Parliament 
should meet. Lauderdale therefore, and the Treasurer 
Coke, voted so obnoxious to the Parliament, (the second fore- 

* William and John Rainsden, Esqrs. were the sons of 
John Ramsden, who was Mayor of Hull, and died of the 
plague in the year 1637, and was buried by the Reverend 
Mr. Andrew Marvel (father to our author) who delivered 
from the pulpit, upon this mournful occasion, a most 
pathetic oration. His eldest son, Mr. John Ramsden, was 
twice chosen member for Hull, and Mr. William was 
Mayor thereof, and the first Alderman that resigned by fine. 



192 ANDREW MARVELL. 

seeing himself to have many enemys) that they were forced 
to make a most strict league with the bishops, and the whole 
old cavalier party, in order to their own security, and the 
King's business, and for the Duke of York, who ought to 
be against the Parliament's meeting. They persuaded him, 
that, in an Act for taking the Popish Test, he should be 
exempted by particular proviso. And though they two 
could have been content the meeting should have been put 
off, so the blame might have layed at the Duke's door, yet 
he thought himself as able to abide the brunt as they 
were, and so let it take its chance ; for there is no real 
union betwixt any of them ; but they shuffle and cab 
every dealing. In order to make their episcopal cavalier 
party, they tried beforehand a politic test to be inacted, 
and then taken by all Members of Parliament, and all 
officers ; though there lay an hook too under that, for 
after such an Act they thought another parliament might 
safely be called, if this proved refractory. Among other 
chimseras, they discoursed of none having any beneficial 
offices but cavaliers, or sons of cavaliers. But, for more 
pageantry, the old King's statute on horseback, of brass, 
was bought and to be set up at Charing-Cross, which hath 
been doiDg longer than Viner's, but does not yet see the 
light. The old King's body was taken up to make a per- 
fect resurrection of loyalty, and to be reinterred with great 
magnificence ; but that sleeps. But principally the laws 
were to be severely executed, and reinforced against 
Fanatics and Papists ; Proclamations issuing a month, 
which is always time enough, before the sitting, to that 
purpose. And the King should ask, forsooth, no money, 
but only mention the building and refitting of ships. And 
thus the Parliament meets, and the King tells them 'tis 
only to see what farther is wanted for religion and pro- 
perty. The Commons were very difficultly brought to give 
him thanks for his gracious expressions. Strait they 



ANDREW MARVELL. 193 

poured in bills for Habeas Corpus against imprisonment 
beyond sea; treason to levy money without, or longer 
than, consent of Parliament ; and that it should be lawful 
to resist. To vacate any Member of Parliament, and 
issue a new writ, who, hereafter being chosen, should 
accept a beneficial office. A new Popish test for Book- 
Houses, else to be incapable. New test, and way of pro- 
ceeding, for speedyer conviction of Papists, and which is 
worse, for appropriating the King's customs to the use of 
the navy ; and, worse of all, voted one morning to proceed 
on no more Bills before the recess ; which the King inti- 
mated should be shortly, but to return in winter. Address 
upon address against Lauderdale. Articles of impeach- 
ment against the Treasurer, but which were blown off at 
last by great bribing. Several addresses for recalling our 
forces out of the French service. One day, in this last 
matter, upon dispute of telling right upon division, both 
parties grew so hot, that all order was lost ; men came 
running confusedly up to the table, grievously affronted one 
by another ; every man's hand on his hilt ; quieted though 
\ at lsst by the present prudence of the Speaker ; and every 
man, in his place, was obliged to stand up, and engage his 
honour, not to resent any thing of that day's proceeding. 

"Shaftsbury of the Lords, Cavendish and Newport of 
the Commons, are forbid the Court ; Strang ways, a flagrant 
churchman, made privy counsellor. Scaramuccio* acting 
daily in the hall of Whitehall, and all soirts of people flock- 
ing thither, and paying their money as at a common play* 
house ; nay even a twelve-penny gallery is builded for the 
convenience of his Majesty's poorer subjects. 

" Dear Will, present my kind love and service to your 
wife. when will you have arrived at what is necessary? 
Make other serviceable instruments that you may not be 

* Performing Mass. 



194 ANDEEW MAEVELL. 

a drudge, but govern all by your understanding. When I 
hear you have received this letter, 1 have another of more 
pleasure ready for you. 
"July 24, 1675." 

"P. S. Strang ways, a man of seven or eight thousand 
pounds a year, having, as I told you, been lately made 
privy counsellor, is dead, like a fool. The same post 
brings it certain. He was gone into the country, swoln 
with his new honour, and with venom against the fanatics. 
He had set the informers to work, and died suddenly, not- 
withstanding his church's letany, from sudden death, good 
Lord, &c. He was their great pillar in the House of Com- 
mons. Thus Holy Church goes to wrack on all side?. 
Never were poor men exposed and abused all the session, 
as the bishops were by the Duke of Buckingham, upon the 
test ; never the like, nor so infinitely pleasant : and no 
men were ever grown so odiously ridiculous. 

"Dr. Burnet, one of Lauderdale's former confidants, 
witnessed, at the Commons bar, that, discoursing to 
Lauderdale of the danger of using such severitys against 
the nonconformists in Scotland, while the King was en- 
gaged in war abroad, Lauderdale said, He wished they 
would rebel. How so ? Why, He would bring over the 
Irish Papists to cut their throats. Farther, concerning the 
Parliament, if they be refractory, I will bring the Scotch 
army upon them : But it will be difficult to persuade them. 
No, the prey of England will draw in a great many. 
Nevertheless Lauderdale is in as much favour as ever." 



"TO WILLIAM RAMSDEN, Esq'. 

"Dear Will, 
" I have time to tell you this much of publick matters. 
The patience of the Scots, under their oppressions, is 



ANDREW MARVELL. 195 

not to be paralleled in any history. They still continue 
their extraordinary and" numerous, but peaceable, field 
conventicles. One Mr. Welch is their arch-minister, and 
the last letter I saw tells, people were going forty miles to 
hear him. There came out, about Christmas last, here, a 
book concerning the growth of popery and arbitrary govern- 
ment. There have been great rewards offered in private, 
and considerable in the Gazette, to any one who could 
inform of the author or printer, but not yet discovered. 
Three or four printed books have since described, as near 
as it was proper to go, the man being a Member of Parlia- 
ment, Mr. Marvell, to have been the author ; but if he 
had, surely he should not have escaped being questioned in 
Parliament, or some other place. My good wishes attend 
you. 

" Yours, &c." 
"June 10, 1678." 



196 



CHAPTER VIII. 



CONCLUSION OF LIFE AND MISCELLANEOUS 
PAPEKS. 

We have thus travelled over the Works of 
the member for Hull, and considered some of 
his sayings and doings. It will be seen that 
we have been able to gather but little of his life. 
Few anecdotes are recorded, but those few do 
appear to be characteristic. All anecdotes, 
almost, related of great and notable men, have 
this worth about them, that they give the deline- 
ations and outlines of character. Theymay, some- 
times, exaggerate the image ; but still it is 
beyond all doubt the image. Captain Thomp- 
son relates an anecdote, which we do not re- 
member to have seen elsewhere, on the authority 
of Mr. Caleb Flemming. For our own part, 
we feel inclined to doubt it as it stands. From 
our knowledge of Marvel l's character, it appears 
to want the internal evidence of truth ; the 
verbal wit is more like Marvel], than the 
muscular exercise. When the controversies 
ran very high, on one occasion, Mr. Marvell 



ANDREW MARVELL. J 97 

met Dr. Parker, his antagonist, (who was at 
that time chaplain to the Bishop of Rochester) 
in one of the public streets of London, when 
the latter rudely attempted to take the wall of 
him, which Mr. Marvell wanting, placed his 
foot and arm in such a manner, that the doctor 
fell into the kennel ; and as the doctor lay 
sprawling in the dirt, he said to him, with his 
usual pleasantry, cc Lye there for a son of a 

w ." The doctor complaining to the 

Bishop, his lordship desired that Mr. Marvell 
would be pleased to call upon him : when on 
the visit, Mr. Marvell asking his Grace the 
occasion of it, he reproached him with abusive 
usage of his chaplain ; but laid the emphasis 
on the foul language, and assured him, that 
unless he made ample satisfaction, a prosecution 
should take place, and he would see justice 
done Dr. Parker. Mr. Marvell replied, that 
his chaplain was impudent to demand the w T all 
of a Member of the House of Commons ; and 
that he had only given him the reproachful 
name he had given himself. 

" How does that appear V 

" Have you not, my Lord Bishop, such a 
book, which he hath lately written S" 

" Yes." 

" Please to produce it. — There, my lord," 
says Marvell, "look over that page of the 
preface !" 

"Well, what of this T 

" Why, my lord, does he not say, ' He is a 
true son of his mother, the Church of England f 

44 Well, and what of that V 9 



198 ANDREW MARVELL. 

" Read further on, my lord : c The church of 
England has spawned two bastards, the Pres- 
byterians and the Congregationals/ Ergo, ray 
lord, he expressly declares, that he is the son 
oj a w . 

" You are very witty, indeed, Mr. Marvel]," 
replied the Lord Bishop, u but let me intreat 
you in future time to show more reverence to 
the cloth." 

There can be no doubt, that in the unre- 
strained freedom of social intercourse, the wit 
of Marvell flashed and sparkled around the 
table and the fireside. But this is lost to us. 
We do not know much of his social usages. 
True to his reputation, almost all we do know 
of him, is the reflection of a character of lofty 
integrity and constancy. But we suspect he 
was reserved in his usual deportment. The 
great difference between his " Familiar Epis- 
tles," and his " Letters to the Corporation of 
Hull," show this. We have seen in the former 
the outflowings of his mind and his opinion 
upon all subjects ; but in the latter, there is a 
cautious holding back of everything, except 
mere intelligence, and a counselling to silence, 
where there did appear to be a probability of a 
tripping tongue. He was cautious, probably, 
in the company in which he allowed himself 
to enter, as well as the most of his conversation 
while there. All which reveals to us a man 
with clear ideas of justice and prudence ; not 
a man who would be likely to lay himself open 
to condemnation, by incautious conduct, and 
rash assaults, either by tongue or arm. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 199 

In 1675, Dr. Croft,* Bishop of Hereford, 
published a Discourse, entitled " The Naked 
Truth, or the true state of the Primitive 
Church, By an humble Moderator." This 
work was written when the controversy with 
the Nonconformists was at its greatest height, 
and the quarrel so artfully widened, that the 
Papists entertained hopes of coming in through 
the breach. The Bishop's book, though no 
more than a pamphlet of four or five sheets, 
made a great noise in the world, and was read 
and studied by all men of sense and learning 
in the kingdom. Though it has often been 
reprinted, it was never common, and is now 
scarce. In this work, the Bishop shows the 

* Herbert Croet was descended from an ancient family 
in Herefordshire. He was born October 18, 1603, at 
Great Milton, near Thame, in Oxfordshire, in the house of 
Sir Wm. Green, where his mother was then on a visit. 
Being carefully educated in his early years, and possessing 
unwearied applications, he soon qualified himself for 
academical studies, and was, in 1616, sent to Oxford. But 
he had not been loDg there, before his father joined the 
Church of Home, and became a Lay Brother in the Bene- 
dictine Monastery, at Douay. Upon his father's command, 
he went into France, and was sent to the English college 
of Jesuits at St. Omer's, where, by the persuasion of 
Father Lloyd, he was reconciled to the Church of Rome, 
and by the insinuations of the same person, and some 
others, contrary to his father's advice in that particular, 
was wrought upon to enter into " the order." Some time 
before his father's death, he returned to England to 
manage some family affairs, and becoming acquainted with 
Dr. Morton, Bishop of Durham, he was, by his arguments, 
brought back to the Church of England, and soon after, at 
the desire of Laud, he went a second time to Oxford, and 
was admitted of Christ Church. 

In the spriDg of 1639, he attended the Earl of Northum- 
berland as Chaplain, in an expedition to Scotland, and in 
1640, he was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Divinity. 



200 ANDREW MARVELL. 

danger of imposing more than is necessary, 
especially as to terras of communion, and pro- 
ceeds through all the great points in dispute 
between the Church of England and the Dis- 
senters ; labouring throughout to prove, that 
Protestants differ in nothing truly essential to 
religion, and that, for the sake of union, com- 
pliances would be more becoming and effectual, 
than in enforcing uniformity, by penalties and 
persecution. The whole is written with great 
plainness and piety, as well as with much force 
of argument and learning. If we consider the 
temper of those times, we need not wonder 
that this work was immediately replied to with 
much heat and zeal, not to use the harsher 

He was afterwards employed by the King upon various 
occasions, in those dangerous times, and always discharged 
his duty with fidelity, though sometimes at the hazard of 
his life. In the year 1644, he was nominated Dean of 
Hereford, where he married Mrs. Ann Brown, the daughter 
of his predecessor. His circumstances were very narrow 
for some years, notwithstanding he had several prefer- 
ments, for the dissolution of Cathedrals took place about 
this time : but in 1659, by the successive deaths of his 
elder brothers, he became possessed of the family estate. 
Upon the death of Dr. Nicholas Mont, Bishop of Hereford, 
he was promoted to that See in December, 1661. He 
frequently officiated in the King's Chapel, and was re- 
markable for his practical preaching, and for the corres- 
ponding sanctity of his manners. Charles II. offered him, 
more than once, a better See, which he conscientiously 
refused. Being weary of a Court Life, and finding but 
little good effects from his pious endeavours, in 1669, he 
retired to his Bishopric, where he was exceedingly beloved 
for his constant preaching, edifying conversation, hospita- 
ble manner of living, and most extensive charity. At 
length, full of years, and in the highest reputation, this 
venerable prelate ended his days at Hereford, on the 18th 
of May, 1691. The late Kev. Herbert Croft was his 
descendant. 



ANDHEW MARVELL. 201 

terms, of fury and resentment. It was first 
attacked by Dr. Francis Turner,* Master of 
St. John's College, Cambridge, a great defender 
of ecclesiastical tyranny, and the imposition of 
human creeds, in a pamphlet entitled " Anim- 
adversions on the Naked Truth. " This pamph- 
let was penned, like all the rest of the writings 
of the same author, in an affected, but flowing 
style. It was replied to with great vivacity by 
Marvell, in a work entitled " Mr. Smirke, or 
the Divine in Mode." He made him a second 
Bayes, as he had done Parker before, in " The 
Rehearsal Transprosed." Marvel], in speaking 
of Bishop Croft's works, says, wi It is a treatise 
which, if not for its opposes needs no commen- 
dation ; being writ with that evidence and 
demonstration of truth, that all sober men can- 
not but give their assent, and consent to it un- 
asked. It is a book of that kind, that no 
Christian can peruse it without wishing him- 
self to have been the author, and almost 
imagining that he is so : the conceptions there- 
in being of so eternal an idea, that every man 
finds it to be but a copy of the original in his 
own mind." 

* Francis Turner^ was son of Dr. Thomas Turner, 
Dean of Canterbury. He received his education at New 
College, in Oxford. In 1670 he was preferred to the 
Mastership of St. John's College, Cambridge. He was 
afterwards advanced to the Deanery of Windsor, which he 
held together with the Bishopric of Rochester. He was 
deprived for not taking the new oaths, 1st February, 
1689 — 90. The next year, he was accused of being a con- 
spirator in a plot of Nonjurors, for restoring King James, 
for rj which some of that party were imprisoned ; but he 
thought it prudent to abscond. A proclamation was soon 
after issued for apprehending him as a traitor. 
K 2 



202 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Marvell had a peculiar knack of calling 
names : it consisted in appropriating a ludi- 
crous character in some popular comedy, and 
dubbing his adversaries with it. In this spirit 
he ridiculed Dr. Turner, by giving him the 
name of a chaplain in Ethertdge's " Man of 
Mode," and thus, with a stroke of the pen, 
conveyed an idea of " a neat, starched, formal, 
ana 1 forward divine/' This application of a 
fictitious character to a real one, — this christen- 
ing a man with ridicule, though of no difficult 
invention, will prove not a little hazardous to 
inferior writers ; for it requires not less wit 
than MarvelPs, to bring out of the real charac- 
ter, the ludicrous features which mark the 
prototype. 

In return for this defence of his work, the 
Bishop of Hereford wrote the following letter 
to Marvell : — 

" Sir, 
" I choose to ran some hazard of this, (having noe certain 
information,) rather than incurre your censure of ingrati- 
tude to the person who hath set forth Mr. Smirke in so 
trim and proper a dresse, unto whose hands I hope this 
will happily arrive, to render him due thanks for the 
humane civility, and christian charity shewed to the author 
of Naked Truth, so bespotted with the dirty language of 
foule-mouthed beasts, whoe, though he feared much his 
own weaknesse, yet, by God's undeserved grace, is so 
strengthened, as not at all to be dejected, or much con- 
cerned with such snarling curs, though sett on by many 
spightfull hands and hearts, of a high stamp, but as base 
alloy. I cannot yet get a sight of what the Bishop of Ely 
(Turner) hath certainly printed ; but keeps very close, to 



ANDREW MARVELL* 203 

put forth, I suppose the next approaching session of Par- 
liament, when there cannot be time to make a reply ; for 
I have just cause to feare the session will be short. Sir, 
this assures you, that you have the zealous prayers, and 
hearty service of the author of Naked Truth, your humble 
Servant. 

" H. C. 
" July, 1676." 

In answer to this Letter from Bishop Croft, 
Marvell says : — 

" My Lord, 

"Upon Tuesday night last I received your thanks for 
that which could not deserve your pardon ; for great is 
your goodnesse to professe a gratitude, where you had a 
justifiable reason for your clemency ; for notwithstanding 
the ill-treatment you received from others, 'tis I that have 
given you the highest provocation. A good cause receives 
more injury from a weak defence, than from a frivolous ac- 
cusation ; and the ill that does a man no harm, is to be 
preferred before the good that creates him a prejudice ; 
but your Lordship's generosity is not, I see, to be reformed 
by the most exquisite patterns of ill-nature ; and while 
perverse men have made a crime of your virtue, yet 'tis 
your pleasure to convert the obligation I have placed upon 
you into a civility. 

" Indeed, I meant all well, but 'tis not every one's good 
fortune to light into hands where he may escape ; and for a 
man of good intentions, lesse than this I could not say in due 
and humble acknowledgment, and your favourable interpre- 
tation of me ; for the r?st, I most heartily rejoice to under- 
stand, that the same God who hath chosen you out to 
beare so eminent a testimony to his truth, hath given you 
also that Christian magnanimity to hold up, without any 



204 ANDREW MARVELL. 

depression of spirit, against its and your opposers : what 
they intend further, I know not, neither am I curious ; 
my soul shall not enter into their secrets ; but as long as 
God shall lend you life and health, I reckon our Church is 
indefectible ; may he, therefore, long preserve you to his 
honour, and further service, which shall be the constant 
prayer of, 

" My Lord, 
4t Your Lordship's most humble 

" and most faithful Servant, 

" Andrew Marvell " 
"London, July 16, 1676." 

To this work of Marvell's was added a short 
" Historical Essay concerning general Councils, 
Creeds, and Impositions, in Matters of Re- 
ligion, by Andreas Redivivus, Jun., 1675 
quarto. This is a continuation of The defence 
of Naked Truth, to show the absurdity of im- 
posing articles of faith. He gives a full account 
of the general Council of Nice, and the ill con- 
sequences of such unhappy debates. A perse- 
cuting spirit in the times drives the greatest 
men to take refuse in the arts of subterfuge. 
Compelled, indeed, to disguise their senti- 
ments, they will not, however, suppress them; 
and hence all their ambiguous proceedings, all 
that ridicule and irony, with which ingenious 
minds, when forced to, have never failed to try 
the patience or the sagacity of intolerance. 
Shaftesbury has thrown out, on this head, 
some important truths. — " If men are forbid to 
speak their minds seriously, they will do it ironi- 
cally. If they find it dangerous to do so, they 
will then redouble their disguise, and talk so as 



ANDREW MARVELL. 205 

hardly to be understood. The persecuting spirit 
raises the bantering one : — the higher the 
slavery, the more exquisite the buffoonery. '' To 
this cause we owe the strong raillery of Mar- 
vell, the cloudy u Oracles of Reason" of 
Blount, and the formidable though gross bur- 
lesque of Hickertngtll. Besides these, were 
two other compositions, — " A seasonable Ques- 
tion and an useful Answer, between a Parlia- 
ment Man in Cornwall, and a Bencher in the 
Temple, by A.M., ] 676." Also, — " A season- 
able Argument to the Grand Juries of England, 
to petition for a new Parliament, or a List of 
the principal Labourers in the great Design of 
Popery and Arbitrary Power, who have be- 
trayed their Country.'' 

The last work of Marvell's published before 
his death, was, — u An Account of the Growth 
of Popery and Arbitrary Government in Eng- 
land.'" Printed in J 768 : re-printed in the 
State Trials, 1689. In this work, the princi- 
ples of our excellent constitution are clearly 
laid down : the legal authority of the Kings of 
England is precisely ascertained ; and the 
glory of the monarch, and the happiness of the 
people, are proved equally to depend upon a 
strict observance of their respective obligations. 
In comparing the sovereigns of England with 
other potentates, he observes : — " The Kings 
of England are nothing inferior to other princes, 
save in being more abridged from injuring their 
own subjects ; but have as large a field as any, 
of external felicity, wherein to exercise their 
own virtue, and to reward and encourage it in 
others. In short, there is nothing that comes 



206 ANDREW MARVELL. 

nearer the Divine perfection, than where the 
monarch, as with us, enjoys a capacity of doing 
all the good imaginable to mankind, under a 
disability to do all that is evil.'" 

He likewise draws a striking contrast of the 
miseries of a nation living under a Popish ad- 
ministration, and the blessings enjoyed under a 
Protestant government ; nor can a stronger 
proof be adduced of the complexion of the 
reigning politics of that era, than the disgust 
excited at court by the free sentiments con- 
tained in this work. It has been denied by 
some historians, that Charles II. either en- 
couraged Popery, or governed arbitrarily ; and 
yet the following advertisement appeared in 
the Gazette, respecting Marvel Fs work : — 

" Whereas there have been lately printed 
and published, several seditious and scandalous 
libels, against the proceedings of both Houses 
of Parliament, and other his Majesty "s Courts 
of Justice, to the dishonour of his Majesty's 
government, and the hazard of the public 
peace : These are to give notice, that what 
person soever shall discover unto one of the 
Secretaries of State, the printer, publisher, 
author, or hander to the press, of any of the 
said libels, so that full evidence may be made 
thereof to a jury, without mentioning the in- 
former; especially one libel, entitled 'An Ac- 
count of the Growth of Popery, ' &c, and an- 
other, called c A Seasonable Argument to all 
Grand Juries,"* &c. ; the discoverer shall be re- 
warded as follows- — he shall have i?50 for 



ANDREW MARVELL. 207 

the discoverer of the printer, or publisher, and 
for the hander of it to the press, iPlOO." 

This reward of the Court did not move the 
calm disposition of Marvell ; for, in a letter to 
his friend, Mr. Popple, dated June 10th, 1678, 
he pleasantly says, — " There came out about 
Christmas last, a large book, concerning c The 
Growth of Popery and Arbitrary Government.*' 
There have been great rewards offered in pri- 
vate, and considerable in the Gazette, to any 
who would inform of the author. Three or 
four books, printed since, have described, as 
near as it was proper to go, the man, Mr. 
Marvell, being a Member of Parliament, to 
have been the author ; but if he had, surely he 
would not have escaped being questioned in 
Parliament, or some other place." No prosecu- 
tion, however, ensued. 

Marvell had now rendered himself so ob- 
noxious to the venal friends of a corrupt court, 
and to the heir presumptive, James, Duke of 
York (himself a bigotted Papist), that he was 
beset on all sides by powerful enemies, who 
even proceeded so far as to menace his life. 
Hence he was obliged to use great caution, to 
appear seldom in public, and frequently to 
conceal the place of his abode : but ail his care 
proved ineffectual to preserve him from their 
vengeance ; for he died on the 16th of August, 
1678, aged 58 years, not without strong suspi- 
cions, (as his constitution was still entire and 
vigorous) of having suffered under the effect of 
poison. He appears to have attended at a pub- 
lic Court, in the Townhall of Hull, a few 



208 ANDREW MARVELL. 

weeks previous to his death ; for, in an extract 
from their books, we find the following entry : 
" This day, (29th of July, 1678,) the Court 
being mett, Andrew Marvell, Esquire, one of 
the Burgesses of Parliament for this Borough, 
came into Court, and several discourses were 
held about the tow T n affaires." 

The public, however, reaped the benefit of 
his patriotism in the following year. His 
writings had opened the eyes of several mem- 
bers of the House of Commons ; and those 
who had long been obsequious to government, 
now found so strong an opposition to its mea- 
sures, that the King found himself under the 
necessity, in the beginning of 1679, of dissolv- 
ing his favourite assembly, which, with the 
exception of one prorogation, had sat for eight- 
teen years, under the odious epithet of u The. 
Pensionary Parliament.." The New Parlia- 
ment, which met in March, 1679, seemed to 
have imbibed the sentiments of the deceased 
Marvell ; the growth of Popery, the arbitrary 
measures of the ministry, and the expediency 
of excluding the Duke of York from the suc- 
cession, being the chief objects which engaged 
their attention. This produced their dissolu- 
tion in the following July. But the spirit of 
civil liberty having now gone forth among the 
people, the next Parliament, which assembled 
in 1680, still more steadily opposed the Popish 
succession, and was, therefore, like its prede- 
cessor, prematurely dissolved in 168J. From 
the ashes of Marvell had sprung up, as it were, 
a new race of patriots, whose hostility to the 
Court made the ministry dread a new election ; 



ANDREW MARVELL. 209 

and though some of them fell a sacrifice to 
their zeal, it may with truth be asserted, that 
their vigorous integrity laid the foundation of 
the glorious Revolution. 

Marvell left a small paternal estate, on which, 
and the allowance given him by his constitu- 
ents, during the sitting of Parliament, he sub- 
sisted, being neither extravagant nor expensive. 
At his death the corporation of Hull imme- 
diately assembled in Common-hall, and unani- 
mously voted fifty pounds towards defraying the 
expense of his funeral. 

To Marvell have been ascribed, by Dr. Whar- 
ton and others, the celebrated Latin lines, sent 
with a portrait of the Protector, to Christiana, 
Queen of Sweden, which have been thus trans- 
lated by Dr. Symmons : — 

" Imperial maid, great arbitress of war, 
Queen of the Pole, yourself its brightest star ! 
Christiana, view this helmet-furrow'd brow, 
This age, that arms have won, but cannot bow; 
As through the pathless wilds of fate I press, 
And hear the people's purpose to success; 
Yet see ! to you this front submits its pride : 
Thrones are not always by its frown defied." 

But as the lines must have been written 
before 1654, when Christiana abdicated heF 
throne, it is not probable that they were written 
by Marvell, as Milton could hardly, by the dis- 
use of a few years, have lost his facility in the 
construction of Latin verse. 

In 1688, the inhabitants of his native town, 
who had not dared to declare their feelings 
under the two preceding Princes, to testify their 



210 ANDREW MARVELL. 

grateful remembrance of his patriotic services, 
collected a sum of money for the purpose of 
erecting a monument to his memory, in the 
church of St. Giles* 1 in the Fields, London, 
where he was interred : but the bi^otted rector 
of the day would not suffer it to be placed 
within its walls. The epitaph, drawn up on 
the occasion, is a manly composition, and ex- 
hibits a bright example of active and incor- 
ruptible patriotism. 

NEAR THIS PLACE 

lieth the bodt of ANDREW MARVELL, Esquire, 

A MAN SO ENDOWED BY NATURE, 

SO IMPROVED BY EDUCATION, STUDY, AND TRAVEL, 

SO CONSUMMATE BY EXPERIENCE; 

THAT JOINING THE MOST PECULIAR GRACES OF 

WIT AND LEARNING, 

WITH A SINGULAR PENETRATION AND STRENGTH OF 

JUDGMENT, 

AND EXERCISING ALL THESE IN THE WHOLE COURSE OF 

HIS LIFE, 

WITH UNALTERABLE STEADINESS IN THE WAYS OF 

VIRTUE, 

HE BECAME THE ORNAMENT AND EXAMPLE OF HIS 

AGE ! 

BELOVED BY GOOD MEN, FEARED BY BAD, ADMIRED BY ALL ; 

THO' IMITATED, ALAS ! BY FEW, AND SCARCELY 

PARALLELED BY ANY. 

BUT A TOMBSTONE CAN NEITHER CONTAIN HIS CHARACTER, 

NOR IS MARBLE NECESSARY TO TRANSMIT IT 

TO POSTERITY; 

IT IS ENGRAVED IN TILE MINDS OF THIS GENERATION, 

AND WILL BE ALWAYS LEGIBLE IN HIS INIMITABLE WRITINGS. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 21 1 

NEVERTHELESS, 

HE HAVING SERVED NEAR TWENTY TEARS SUCCESSIVELY 

IN PARLIAMENT, 

AND THAT WITH SUCH WISDOM, DEXTERITY, INTEGRITY, 

AND COURAGE, AS BECAME 

A TRUE PATRIOT I 

the town or KINGSTON-UPON-HULL, 

FROM WHENCE HE WAS CONSTANTLY DEPUTED TO THAT 

ASSEMBLY, 

LAMENTING IN HIS DEATH THE PUBLIC LOSS, 

HATH ERECTED THIS MONUMENT OP THEIR GRIEF, AND 

GRATITUDE. 

HE DIED IN THE 58TH YEAR OF HIS AGE, 

ON THE 16TH DAY OF AUGUST, 1678. 

lieu fragile humanum genus/ lieu terrestria vanaf 
Heu quam spectatum continet urna virum 1 

It will be seen that our materials afford an 
insufficient data for an estimate of MarvelFs 
character as a man. We have only to speak 
of him as a Senator, and as a Poet. 

In 1771, Captain Thompson presented a 
copy of the Portrait in the British Museum to 
the Trinity House, at Hull, which they placed 
in their Council Chamber, accompanied with 
the following character, by Captain Thompson, 
who appears to have been an enthusiastic ad- 
mirer of the patriot : 

" Andrew Marvell, Esquire, was the unshaken friend 
of England, Liberty, and Magna Charta, who to the 
highest ability, natural and acquired, joined the purest 
and most unsullied virtue ; and a magnanimity not to be 
shaken by the foes of freedom. His wit was the scourge 
of i mitred dulness/ and royal folly ; the lures of corrup- 



212 ANDREW MARVELL, 

tion he scorned with, manly steadiness, and vested with 
the armour of truth, he bid . defiance to oppression. 
Amidst the cobwebs of poverty, and'need, he maintained 
his honour and honesty, and rejected the pageantry of a 
court, as much as the venal temptations of a minister. He 
preferred virtue and a garret, to meanness and the star- 
chamber, and gave up the viands of a king, for health, 
peace, and a crust. Places, pensions, bribes, lucre, and 
reversions, he left for such, whose prostituted hearts could 
sell and betray their country. In vain did the treasury 
pour forth her golden tides ; in spite of every temptation, 
even in the most fretting need and indigence, he stood un- 
corrupted, the coiossian champion of liberty and independ- 
ence ; and made the minions of lust and folly tremble 
under the burnished canopy of the throne. And yet, alas ! 
all these patriot virtues were insufficient to guard him 
against the Jesuitical machinations of the state ; for what 
vice and bribery could not influence, was perpetrated 1 by 
poison. Thus fell one of the first characters of this king- 
dom, or any other ; a greater Rome, Sparta, Athens, Car- 
thage could not boast ! — he was an honest man, a real 
patriot, and an incorruptible senator." 

Thus we have gone through the particulars 
of the life and the works of one of those heroes 
of English greatness, who reminds us of the 
ancient Roman duty to the interests of the 
state. Marvell w^as a man, however, of more 
than Roman grandeur. When Rome produced 
her great men, she was never so hopelessly 
sunk in degradation as England was when she 
produced Marvell. There are many circum- 
stances in his history most interesting to con- 
template : — his pride in his poverty — he esti- 
mated things at their true and legitimate value, 



ANDREW MARVELL, 213 

and he appraised higher than aught else a good 
conscience ; he set the principal value on the 
pot of herbs eaten in obscurity, and in contempt 
and neglect, rather than on the rich, golden 
vases which were bought with the disgrace a»d 
the shame of the country ; he was not to be 
bought — he was not to be lured. Among all 
the rich and costly luxuries of that time, all 
the over-flowing wealth surrounding tlie throne 
and the court, probably there was not one rich 
thing that might not have been, for a long 
season, at his command. How many of those 
voluptuous houries who surrounded the court of 
the king might have been his slaves ? but all 
were in vain. The king, his pampered and 
servile menials in court and in senate, tried 
their wiles upon him in vain — they could not 
buy him, — he remained, as his great comrade 
said of another — 

" Faithful among the faithless — 
Faithful only He." 

Certainly, as we have before said, there is in 
this no more than we may expect from any 
rightly thinking, rightly acting citizen ; but in 
that day, such devotion to principle was indeed 
rare. Well might lie write, as he did, in verses 
beautiful, not merely from their measure, but 
their reality and truth — 

" Climb at Court for me, that will 
Tottering favours pinnacle : 
All I seek is to lie still. 
Settled in some secret nest, 
In calm leisure let me rest : 



214 ANDREW MARVELL. 

And far off the public stage 
Pass away my silent age. 
Thus -when, without noise, unknown, 
I have lived out all my span, 
m I shall die without a groan, 

An old, honest country- man, 
Who exposed to others' eyes, 
Into his own heart he empries — 
Death's to him a strange surprise." 



APPENDIX. 



There are two specimens of MarvelFs com- 
position, so widely different, that we will 
venture to close our extracts with them : the 
one is the very life of characteristic wit and 
humour ; the other, the second, is a beautiful 
vein of warm and expressive tenderness. 

The following is a parody by Marvell, on 
the speeches of Charles II. — 

"My Lords and Gentlemen, 
" I told you, at our last meeting, the winter was the 
fittest time for business, and truly I thought so, till My 
Lord Treasurer assured me the spring was the best 
season for salads and subsidies. I hope, therefore, that 
April will not prove so unnatural a month, as not to afford 
some kind showers upon my parched exchequer, which 
gapes for want of them. Some of you, perhaps, will think ' 
it dangerous to make me too rich ; but I do not fear it ; 
for I promise you faithfully, whatever you give me I 
will always want ; and although in other things my word 
may be thought a slender authority, yet in that, you may 
rely on me, I will never break it." 

"My Lords and Gentlemen, 
"I can bear my straits with patience ; but My Lord 



216 ANDREW MARVELL. 

Treasurer* does protest to me, that the revenue, as it 
now stands, will not serve him and me too. One of us 
must pinch for it, if you do not help me. I must speak 
freely to you ; I am in bad circumstances, for besides my 
harlots in service, my reformado concubines lie heavy upon 
me. I have a passable good estate, I confess ; but God's 
fish ! I have a great charge upon it. Here is my Lord- 
Treasurer can tell, that all the money designed for next 
summer's guards must, of necessity, be applied to the 
next year's cradles and swaddling clothes. What shall we 
do for ship3 then ? I hint this only to you, it being your 

* "The person," says Burnet, "who was appointed to 
succeed Lord Clifford as treasurer, was Sir Thomas 
Osborn, a gentleman of Yorkshire, whose estate was sunk. 
He was a very plausible speaker, but too copious, and 
could not easily make an end of his discourse. He had 
been always among the high cavaliers ; and missing pre- 
ferment, he opposed the court much, and was one of Lord 
Clarendon's bitterest enemies. . He gave himself great 
liberties in discourse, and did not seem to have any re- 
gard for truth, or so much as to the appearances of it ; and 
was an implacable enemy ; but he had a peculiar way to 
make his friends depend on him, and to believe he was 
true to them. He was a positive and undertaking man : 
so he gave the King great ease by assuring him all things 
would go according to his mind in the next Session of 
Parliament. And when his hopes failed him, he had al- 
ways some excuse to put the miscarriage upon. And 
by this means he got into the highest degree of confidence 
with the King, and maintained it the longest of all who 
ever served him." The Earl of Dartmouth also says of 
him, "I never knew a man that could express himself so 
clearly, or that seemed to carry his point so much by 
force of superior understanding. In private conversation 
he had a particular art in making the company tell their 
opinions without discovering his own, which he would 
afterwards make use of very much to his advantage, by 
undertaking that people should be of an opinion that he 
knew was theirs before." Sir Thomas Osborn was after- 
wards created Lord Danby, next Marquis of Carmarthen, 
and lastly, Duke of Leeds. 



ANDREW MARVELL. 217 

business, not mine ; I know, by experience, I can live with- 
out ships. I lived ten years abroad without, and never had 
my health better in my life ; but how you will be without, 
I leave to yourselves to judge, and hint this only by the bye : 
I do not insist upon it. There is another thing I must 
press more earnestly, and that is this : it seems a good part 
of my revenue will expire in two or three years, except 
you will be pleased to continue it. I have to say for it ; 
pray, why did you give me so much as you have done, 
unless you resolve to give on as fast as I call for it ? The 
nation hates you already for giving so much, and I will 
hate you too, if you do not give me more. So that if you 
stick not to me, you will not have a friend in England. 
On the other hand, if you will give me the revenue I 
desire, I shall be able to do those things for your religion 
and liberty, that I have had long in my thoughts, but 
cannot effect them without a little more money to carry 
me through. Therefore look to't, and take notice, that if 
you do not make me rich enough to undo you, it shall lie 
at your doors. For my part, I wash my hands on it. But 
that I may gain your good opinion, the best way is to ac- 
quaint you what I have done to deserve it, out of my royal 
care for your religion and your property. For the first, 
my proclamation is a true picture of my mind. He that 
cannot, as in a glass, see my zeal for the Church of Eng- 
land, does not deserve any farther satisfaction, for I de- 
clare him wilful, abominable, and not good. Some may, 
perhaps, be startled, and cry, how comes this sudden 
change ? To which I answer, I am a changeling, and that 
is sufficient, I think. But to convince men farther, that 1 
meaa what I say, there are these arguments. 

" First, I tell you so, and you know I never break my 
word. 

' ' Secondly, My Lord Treasurer says so, and he never 
told a lie in his life. 



218 ANDREW MARVELL. 

" Thirdly, My Lord Lauderdale* will undertake it for 
me ; and T should be loath, by any act of mine, he should 
forfeit the credit he has with you. 

" If you desire more instances of my zeal, I have them 
for you. For example, I have converted my natural sons 

* Burnett, who was acquainted with Lauderdale, says, 
" I knew him particularly. He made an ill appearance ; 
he was very big ; his hair red hanging oddly about him ; 
his tongue was too big for his mouth, which made him un- 
fit for a court. He was very learned, not only in Latin, in 
which he was a master, but in Greek and Hebrew. He 
had read a great deal of divinity, and almost all the histo- 
rians, ancient and modern, so that he had great materials. 
He had with these an extraordinary memory, and a copious 
but unpolished expression ; abject to those he saw he must 
stoop to, but imperious to all others. He had a violence 
of passion that carried him often to fits like madness, in 
which he had no temper. If he took a thing wrong, it was 
impossible to convince him, and he would swear he would 
never be of another mind — he was to be left alone ; and 
perhaps he would have forgot what he had said, and come 
>ut of his own accord. He was the coldest friend, and 

*e most violent enemy I ever knew ; and I felt it too 
jmch not to kuow it. He at first seemed to despise wealth ; 
but he delivered himself up afterwards to luxury and sen- 
suality, and by that means he ran into a vast expense, and 
stuck at nothing that was necessary to support it. In hia 
long imprisonment he had great impressions of religion on 
his mind ; but he wore these out so entirely, that scarce 
any trace of them was left. His great experience in affairs, 
bis ready compliance with every thing that he thought 
would please the king, and his bold offering at the most 
desperate counsels, gained him such an interest in the 
king, that no attempt against him, nor complaint of him, 
could ever shake it, till a decay of strength and under- 
standing forced him to let go his hold. He was, in his 
principle =*, much against Popery and arbitrary government ; 
and yet, by a fatal train of passions and interests, he made 
way for the former, and had almost established the latter. 
And, where some, by a smooth deportment, made the first 
beginnings of tyranny lem discernible and unacceptable, 
he, by the fury of his behaviour, heightened the severity 
of his ministry, which was liker the cruelty of an inquisi- 
tion than the legality of justice." 



ANDREW MARVELL. 219 

from Popery, and I may say without vanity, it was my 
own work, so much the more peculiarly mine than the be- 
getting them. 'Twould do one's heart good to hear how 
prettily George can read already in the Psalter. They are 
all fine children, God bless 'em, and so like me in their 
understandings ! But, as I was saying, I have, to pleas* 
you, given a pension to your favourite, my Lord Lauder- 
dale ; not so much that I thought he wanted it. as that 
you would take it kindly. I have made Carwell, Duchess 
of Portsmouth, and married her sister to the Earl of Pem- 
broke. I have, at my brother's request, sent my Lord 
Inchiquin into Barbary, to settle the Protestant religion 
among the Moors, and an English interest at Tangier. I 
have made Crew, Bishop of Durham, and at the first word 
of my Lady Portsmouth, Prideaux, Bishop of Chichester. I 
know not, for my part, what factious men would have ; 
but this I am sure of, my predecessors never did any thing 
like this, to gain the good will of their subjects. So much 
for your religion, and now for your property. My be- 
haviour to the bankers is a public instance ; and the pro- 
ceedings between Mrs. Hyde and Mrs. Sutton, for private 
ati3S, are such convincing evidences, that it will be need- 
less to say any more to it 

"I must now acquaint you that, by my Lord Treasurer's 
advice, I have made a considerable retrenchment upon my 
expenses in candles and charcoal, and do not intend to 
stop, but will, with your help, look into the late embezzle- 
ments of my dripping-pans and kitchen -stuffs ; of which, 
by the way, upon my conscience, neither my Lord Trea- 
surer nor my Lord Lauderdale are guilty. I tell you my 
opinion ; but if you should find them dabbling in that 
business, I tell you plainly, I leave them to you ; for, I 
would have the world to know, I am not a man to be 
cheated." 



220 ANDREW MARVELL. 

'•My Loeds and Gentlemen, 
" I desire you to believe me as you have found me ; and 
I do solemnly promise you, that whatsoever you give me 
shall be specially managed with the same conduct, trust, 
sincerity, and prudence, that I have ever practised, since 
my happy restoration." 

The following beautiful and tender letter, 
which was written by Marvell to Sir John 
Trott, on the death of his son, we'think worth 
a place at the end of this memoir : — 

"HONOURED SIR, 

" I have not that vanity to believe, if you weigh your 
late loss by the common balance, that anything I can 
write to you should lighten your resentments ; nor if you 
measure things by the rules of Christianity, do I think it 
needful to comfort you in your duty, and your son's hap- 
piness. Only having a great esteem. and affection for you, 
and the grateful memory of him that is departed, being 
still green and fresh upon my spirit, I cannot forbear 
to enquire, how you stood the second shock, at the sad 
meeting of friends in the country. I know that the very 
sight of those who have been witnesses of our better for- 
tune, doth but serve to reinforce a calamity. I know the 
eontagion of grief, and infection of tears ; and especially 
when it runs in a blood. And I myself could sooner imi- 
tate than blame those innocent relentings of nature, so 
that they spring from tenderness only, and humanity, not 
from an implacable sorrow. The tears of a family may 
flow together like those little drops that compact the 
rainbow, and if they be placed with the same advantage 
towards heaven, as those are to the sun, they too, have 
their splendour ; and like that bow, while they unbend 
into seasonable showers, yet they promise that there shall 



ANDREW MARVELL. 221 

not be a second flood. But the dissoluteness of grief — 
the prodigality of sorrow — is neither to be indulged in a 
man's self, nor complyed with in others. If that were 
allowable in these cases, Eli's was the reddyest way, and 
highest compliment, of mourning, who fell back from his 
seat, and broke his neck. But neither does that precedent 
hold : for though he had been chancellor, and in effect, 
King of Israel, for so many years (and such men value, as 
themselves, their losses at a higher rate than others), yet, 
when he heard that Israel was overcome, that his two sons, 
Hophni and Phineas, were slain in one day, and saw him- 
self so without hope of issue, and which embittered it 
further, without succession to the government, yet he fell 
not till the news that the ark of God was taken. I pray God 
that we may never have the same parallel perfected in 
our publick concernments. Then we shall need all the 
strength of grace and nature to support us. But on a pri- 
vate loss, and sweetened with so many circumstances as 
yours, to be impatient, to be uncomfortable, would be to 
dispute with God. Though an only son be inestimable, 
yet it is, like Jonah's sin, to be angry at God for the wither- 
ing of his shadow. Zipporah, though the delay had almost 
cost her husband his life, yet when he did but circumcise 
her son, in a womanish peevishness reproached Moses as a 
bloody husband. But if God take the son himself, but spare 
the father, shall we say that he is a bloody God ? He 
that gave his Son, may he not take ours ? It is pride that 
makes a rebel ; and nothing but the overweening of our- 
selves, and our own things, that raises us against Divine 
Providence. Whereas, Abraham's obedience was better 
than sacrifice. And if God please to accept both, it is in- 
deed a farther tryal, but a greater honour. I could say 
over upon this beaten occasion, most of those lessons of 
morality and religion, which have been so often repeated, 
and are as soon forgotten. We abound with precept, but 



222 ANDREW MAEVELL. 

we want examples. You, sir, that have all these things m 
your memory, and the clearness of whose judgment is not 
to be obscured by any greater interposition, should be ex- 
emplary to others in your own practice. "Pis true, it is a 
hard task to learn and teach at the same time. And 
where yourselves are the experiment, it is as if a man 
should dissect his own body, and read the anatomy lecture. 
But 1 will not heighten the difficulty, while I advise the 
attempt. Only, as in difficult things, you would do well 
to make use of all that may strengthen and assist you ; 
the word of God, the society of good men, and the books 
of the ancients : there is one way more, which is, by 
diversion, business, and activity, which are also necessary 
to be used in their season. But I, who live to so little 
purpose, can have little authority or ability to advise you 
in it. 

"From your very affectionate friend, 

** and most humble servant, 
" Andrew MaryellJ* 



FINIS, 



J. S. Pratt, Stokesley, Yorkshire. 



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